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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 





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GEO. WASHINGTON. WHO ALONE WAS UNANIMOUSLY ELECTED TO THE HALL OF FAME 



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THF LIBRARY OF 
OONOHESb, 

NOV. 2S t90? 

Ci.4Rft CA.«xXo No. 
COPY B. 



Copyright, 1902. by Louxs Klopsch. 




AUTHOR'S PREFACE 



L' 



IFE is always interesting-. Nothing is so great a stimu- 
lant to ambition for high and noble living as coming in 
contact with other great and forceful lives. One may 
do this by personal contact in social, business, or political 
fellowship, or through reading the lives of those who have 
finished their earthly career. There is an important sense 
{yfc^}, in which it is true, that the biography of a man is more vital 
in its influence and power than was his personality while he 
lived. During the life of a public man the world is divided 
into factions concerning him, and he is judged through a 
mist of prejudice and jealousy; but after his death this 
gradually clears away, and his career stands out before the 
world sharply defined. The power of many men grows, as 
the centuries go on, in ever-increasing usefulness. 

In this volume it has been the purpose of the author, 
in connection with a brief, concise story of the origin of the 
Hall of Fame, to give as interesting and vivid a picture as }J 
possible within the limits necessary to such a volume, of 




THE HALL OF FAME 



each of the twenty-nine personalities which have, up to this 
time, been chosen for a place in that hall of American 
Immortals. He has sought everywhere within his reach for 
materials to enter into these portraits. A detailed life was, 
of course, out of question, but he has sought to do what 
seemed to him far more important, give a brief, truthful, 
and, at the same time, entertaining and picturesque presen- 
tation of these signally important characters in American 

life. 

Louis Albert Banks. 

New Yojk City, September 20, igo2. 











CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Situation and Origin 13 

11. The Dedication 20 

III. America's New Shrine 31 

IV. George Washington 39 

V. Abraham Lincoln 52 

VI. Daniel Webster 64 

VII. Benjamin Franklin 74 

VIII. Ulysses Simpson Grant 85 

IX. John Marshall- 94 

X. Thomas JeffersoJ^ 106 

XL Ralph Waldo Emerson^ J 119 

XII. Robert Fulton 128 

XIII. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 139 

XIV. Washington Irving 149 

XV. Jonathan Edwards 158 

XVI. Samuel Finley Breese Morse 170 

XVII. David Glascoe Farragut 181 

XVIII. Henry Clay 188 

XIX. George Peabody '. 201 

XX. Nathaniel Hawthorne 210 

XXI. Peter Cooper 220 

XXII. Eli Whitney 231 

XXIII. Robert Edward Lee 236 

XXIV. Horace Mann 244 

vii 



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THE HALL OF FAME 




CHAPTER PAGE 

XXV. John James Audubon 252 

XXVI. James Kent 267 

XXVII. Henry Ward Beecher 279 

XXVIII. Joseph Story 288 

XXIX. John Adams 299 

XXX. William Ellery Channing 308 

XXXI. Gilbert Charles Stuart 323 

XXXII. Asa Gray 332 

XXXIII. Some Rules and Regulations 345 

XXXIV. Selection of Judges 35 1 

XXXV. Selection of Candidates 355 

XXXVI. Nominations 360 

XXXVII. The Ballots of the Judges 369 

XXXVIII. Some Who Barely Missed Election .... 375 

XXXIX. Famous WoxMen 398 



J^ 





PAGE 

George Washington Frontispiece 

The Hall of Fame 12 

Famous People Who Took Part in the Dedication Services 25 
Senator Depew Delivering an Oration at the Dedication 

Services 35 

Abraham Lincoln^ U. S. Grant, Benjamin Franklin, and 

Daniel Webster 53 

Thomas Jefferson, Robert Fulton, John Marshall, and 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 75 

Henry - W. Longfellow, Washington Irving, Jonathan 

Edwards, and Samuel F. B. Morse 95 

View of the Hall of Fame, with Reproductions of two of 

THE Memorial Tablets 107 

D. G. Farragut, Henry Clay, George Peabody, and Na- 
thaniel Hawthorne 118 

Peter Cooper, Eli Whitney, Robert E. Lee, and Horace 

Mann 138 

Interior View Statesmens' Corner and Exterior View 

Authors' Corner 159 

Henry Ward Beecher, Joseph Story, James Kent, and 

John J. Audubon 180 

John Adams, William E. Channing, Gilbert Charles 

Stuart, and Asa Gray 200 

Library of New York University 211 

ix 



U^Jl, 





THE HALL OF FAME 



PAGE 

Famous Men Who Came Within 20 Votes of the 51 Votes 

Required for Election 221, 237, 253 

Famous Women Who Were Nominated but Not Elected 266, 278 
Committee of the New York University Counting the 

Votes 298 

A Group of University and College Presidents Who Acted 

AS Judges 309 

Famous Women Who Acted as Judges 322 

Some Famous Professors of History and Scientists Who 

Acted as Judges 333 

Famous Supreme Court Judges Who Acted as Judges for the 

Hall of Fame 350 

A Group of Famous Editors and Authors Who Acted as 

Judges 368 

The Originator of the Hall of Fame 387 

Note — The photograph of Dorothea Lynde Dix, on page 266, is 
reproduced by courtesy of Houghton, Mifflin and Co. ; the photo- 
graphs of Abram S. Hewitt and J. G. Brown, on page 25, are copy- 
right, 1902, and the portrait of C. D. Warner, on page 368, copyright, 
1897, by Rockwood, New York ; the photograph of the Committee of 
the New York University Senate Counting the Votes, on page 298, 
is reproduced by courtesy of the New York Tribune; and the engrav- 
ing of Elias Howe, on page 221, is copyright by the J. C. Yorston 
Publishing Co. The photograph of Whitelaw Reid, on page 368, is 
by Aime Dupont, and the photograph of E. C. Stedman, on page 
368, is by Alman and Co. The photograph of J. Willis Baer, on 
page 25, is copyright, 1901, by Purdy. 




THE HALL OF FAME 



[m 



CHAPTER I. 



SITUATION AND ORIGIN 



IN 1776 what is now known as University Heights, then 
known as Fort Number Eight, was occupied by the 
British forces. In that year it was evacuated by the 
invaders, who had formerly dislodged the Americans en- 
trenched at Fort Washington from this commanding situa- 
tion. But the British lost it for good when they marched 
away six score years ago and more, and now a company of 
American Immortals, with George Washington at their head, 
have marched in and taken possession — a permanent pos- 
session, which they will hold forevermore. 

Chancellor MacCracken, of the New York University, 
in his account of the inception of the Hall of Fame, says that 
like many another product of civilization, it was due in con- 
siderable part to hard facts of physical geography. In order 
to secure a large interior campus, it was necessary that the 
three buildings which composed the west side of the college 
quadrangle should be placed close by the avenue above the 
Harlem River. But since the grade of the quadrangle was 
one hundred and seventy feet above the river, and from 

13 



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THE HALL OF FAME 



forty to sixty feet above the avenue, this arrangement would 
leave the exterior basement walls of these buildings exposed 
and unsightly. To conceal these walls, and to present an 
ornamental effect toward the avenue, a broad terrace was 
suggested, to be supported upon granite walls and crowned 
by a colonnade. The colonnade was to stand upon the outer 
curve of the terrace and extend full five hundred feet in 
length. 

While the argument for this structure, upon the ground 
of beauty, was most convincing, the trustees of the Univer- 
sity did not feel justified in spending so large a sum of money 
simply upon ornamental work. Chancellor MacCracken felt 
that he must discover some educational use for such an edi- 
fice, and it was in that search that there came to him the 
idea of " The Hall of Fame for Great Americans." The 
educational value of such a structure promised to grow with 
the years and endure for many generations. 

It was curious that no plans for an American Pantheon 
had before this time been presented to the nation. 

In Rome still stand the remains of the Pantheon, built 
by Agrippa (to-day the most perfect of the existing classical 
buildings in the city), dedicated to all the gods, and god- 
desses, and deities of Roman mythology. 

The Pantheon in Paris, now the Church of St. Gene- 
vieve, was consecrated by the Convention to illustrious men. 

Munich possesses a Temple of Fame, built by the King 
of Bavaria, while in England, Westminster Abbey serves to 
commemorate under one roof the names of many of the 
most famous children of the empire. 

Even in mythology, we have a poetic conception of a 
place where Fame is king : 

14 






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ORIGIN 



"Amid the world 'tween heaven and earth and sea, there is 

a place, 
Set from the bounds of each of them indifferently in space, 
From whence is seen whatever thing is practised anywhere, 
Although the realm be ne'er so far ; and roundly to the ear 
Comes whatsoever spoken is. Fame hath his dwelling there, 
Who, in the top of all the house, is lodged in a tower ; 
A thousand entries, glades, and holes are framed in the 

bower. 
There are no doors to shut. The doors stand open night 

and day; 
The house is all of sounding brass, and roareth every way, 
Reporting double every word it heareth people say. 
Here Fame beholdeth what is done in heaven, on seas, on 

lands. 
And what is wrought in all the world he sees and under- 
stands." 

Happily with the idea of an American Pantheon there 
came a generous friend, with an offer of one hundred thou- 
sand dollars toward the carrying into effect of the Chancel- 
lor's beautiful dream. Although the total cost of the Hall 
of Fame, including the museum, was to exceed one quarter 
of a million dollars, this gift, by one whose name is withheld, 
but is popularly supposed to be that of a generous young 
woman whose fame for good deeds and generous philan- 
thropy is in all the land, gave that impulse to the movement 
required to make it a certainty. 

In the Hall of Fame were to be provided one hundred 
and fifty panels, to be inscribed to the memory of great 
Americans — not more than fifty to be raised at the present 

IS 



THE HALL OF FAME 



time, and fifty more at the close of every succeeding period 
of five years. 

It was decided that in the first fifty names should be 
included one or more representatives of the following fifteen 
classes of citizens : Authors and Editors, Business Men, 
Educators, Inventors, Missionaries and Explorers, Philan- 
thropists and Reformers, Preachers and Theologians, Scien- 
tists, Engineers and Architects, Lawyers and Judges, Mu- 
sicians, Painters and Sculptors, Physicians and Surgeons, 
Rulers and Statesmen, Soldiers and Sailors, and distin- 
guished men and women outside the above classes. 

No name was to be inscribed except of a person born 
in what is now the territory of the United States, and who 
had been deceased for at least ten years. 

Nominations were invited from the public, and it was 
planned that any name that was seconded by a member of 
the University Senate should be submitted to one hundred 
judges chosen among three classes of citizens — University 
or College Presidents and Educators ; Professors of History 
and Scientists ; Publicists, Editors, and Authors ; and Judges 
of the Supreme Court, State or National. 

There was no lack of nominations. Literary and edu- 
cational bodies, as well as patriotic, military, and philan- 
thropic societies, scientific associations, and many other 
organizations, hastened to send in the names of those in 
which they were interested through the peculiar character 
of their societies. 

Some leading newspapers also added great interest to 
the occasion by offering prizes to contestants who should 
approach most nearly to the roll of names finally selected 
by the judges and University Senate. A very interesting 

i6 




incident occurred in connection with one of these contests. 
The highest prize of $ioo offered by a newspaper went to 
a schoolgirl, whose hst of fifty names contained twenty- 
seven of the twenty-nine finally elected by the hundred 
judges. 

The University Senate soon had nearly a thousand 
names presented for its consideration. They selected one 
hundred names which stood first in popular favor in news- 
paper contests. Each member of the Senate had the right 
to make a further nomination from the thousand names sent 
in by the public; one hundred additional nominations were 
thus made. The judges also were asked to nominate, and 
they added something over thirty names. 

The list of nominations was sent out from the Uni- 
versity Senate to the one hundred judges, June 15, 1900, and 
they had until October of that year to make up their minds 
and cast their ballot. Ninety-seven judges acted within the 
required time. 

Only twenty-nine names were chosen, as it had been de- 
cided that no name could be selected which had not received 
a majority, not of the votes cast, but of the one hundred 
judges, thus requiring fifty-one votes to elect. The follow- 
ing are the twenty-nine names chosen, with the votes cast 
for eacli : 

George Washington 97 

Abraham Lincoln . 96 

Daniel Webster it • C 96 

Benjamin Franklin ^ " .^ 94 

Ulysses Simpson Grant 93 

John Marshall 91 

Thomas Jefferson gi 

17 




WJT^-- 



THE HALL OF FAME 



"^^^^■wm, 



Ralph Waldo Emerson 87 

Robert Fulton 86 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow y\^ ... 85 

Washington Irving 83 

Jonathan Edwards 82 

Samuel Finley Breese Morse . . . . . 82 

David Glascoe Farragut 79 

Henry Clay 74 

George Peabody .'^1^*^ 74 

Nathaniel Hawthorne Kis s.i 73 

Peter Cooper 69 

Eli Whitney .'H^.^s 69 

Robert E. Lee 'h 68 

Horace Mann . .'^-.^^ 67 

John James Audubon 67 

James Kent 65 

Henry Ward Beecher ^ ^.-v>-r> 2 64 

Joseph Story 64 

John Adams . ; 62 

William Ellery Channing P. ' 58 

Gilbert Charles Stuart 52 

Asa Gray 51 



In a later chapter, we give a complete list of the great 
Americans who were nominated, and full details of the 
voting. Suffice it to mention here, that of the 234 names, 
twenty received no support at all, while twenty-two received 
but one vote of the possible 97. 

The names of nine women were submitted to the judges, 
but in no case did they come near the majority of votes 
required. On the board of electors were three women, all 

18 






m^'^ 




THE HALL OF FAME 



CHAPTER n. 



(■'i<S> 



THE DEDICATION 

THE Hall of Fame for Great Americans was dedicated 
May 30, 1901. The New York Tribune report of 
the occasion says: 

" The ceremony was as picturesque as the occasion was 
memorable. Several thousands of invited guests sat upon 
benches on a gentle hillside, whose emerald green grass 
sloped away in front and at either side of them in broad 
expanses and rose behind them to the base of the noble hall, 
whose massive granite blocks, crowning the summit of the 
hill, look as if they would last as long as fame endures. 

" From a low platform near the bottom of this hill, partly 
overhung by the foliage of trees, the orator of the day, 
Chauncey M. Depew, and the presiding officer. Chancellor 
MacCracken of New York University, addressed this throng. 

" When the speechmaking was over a procession was 
formed, led by representatives of the thirty patriotic and 
educational organizations who were to unveil the tablets in 
the hall, and the line moved slowly along the winding paths 
of the University grounds under the trees, and steadily 
upward to the broad plateau whence direct admission to the 
hall is obtained. It then entered the north end of the stately 
colonnade, in such order that when the whole line halted each 
society stood opposite the tablet it had come to unveil. Brief 



w 



DEDICATION 



addresses were made, and then the draperies of red, white 
and blue bunting were removed, revealing- twenty-nine 
names, all that have so far been selected as worthy of patri- 
otic commemoration there, but enough to form a worthy 
recognition of the multiformity of human greatness. Sing- 
ing the national hymn brought to a close the ceremony, 
which had been begun with prayer by the Rev. Dr. N. D. 
Hillis. 

" Fortunately no rain fell, and the whole affair was 
conducted in the open air with comfort. The sun shone 
even brightly part of the time, showing to the best advantage 
the varied landscape overlooked by University Heights, 
which includes parts of the Hudson and the Harlem Rivers, 
Fort George, the big knolls of Spuyten Duyvil and the far- 
away tops of the Orange Mountains. The Hall of Fame 
is an imposing colonnade of stone, open at the sides, but 
roofed, five hundred feet long, semicircular in shape, and 
in the architectural style of the early Greeks. The spaces 
between most of the pillars which support the roof are filled 
in with a solid stone balustrade about four feet high. On 
the inner side of this balustrade are 150 panels, each 8 feet 
long and 2 feet wide. These panels are intended for the 
heavy bronze tablets bearing in high relief the names of the 
elected. On top of the balustrade, between the pillars and 
immediately over each name, will eventually be placed the 
bust of the men whose fame is there perpetuated. 

"Although Miss Helen M. Gould has never acknowl- 
edged that she is the giver of the $100,000 which made pos- 
sible this unique addition to the buildings of New York 
University so far completed, she was an important figure at 
the opening ceremonies, and, with Chancellor MacCracken 

21 



THE HALL OF FAME 



•^i 



and some others, welcomed the invited guests in the audito- 
rium of the library before the speechmaking began. Some 
of those who took part in the informal reception, other than 
those named hereafter, were Russell Sage, Judge Warren W. 
Foster, St. Clair McKelway and Miss Laura D. Gill, dean 
of Barnard College." 

Those who were selected to take an active part in 
unveiling the tablets were as follows : 

Cooper's — Abram S. Hewitt, Edward Cooper, and R. Fulton Cutting, 
representing the Cooper Institute. 

Lincoln's — General John M. Schofield, General Henry L. Burnett, 
and General Joseph W. Plume, representing the Loyal Legion. 

Marshall's — William B. Hornblower, Edmund Wetmore, and 
Austen G. Fox, representing the American Bar Association. 

Story's — James B. Dill, Edward T. Devine, James T. Young, and 
Samuel McCune Lindsay, of the American Academy of Political 
and Social Science. 

Stuart's — Eastman Johnson, J. G. Brown, Frederick Dielman, and 
Henry W. Watrous, of the National Academy of Design. 

Channing's — George H. Sargent, representing the New England 
Society. 

Peabody's — J. L. M. Curry and Henderson M. Somerville, of the 
Peabody Education Fund. 

Kent's — Ex- Judge James M. Varnum. of the Bar Association of 
New York. 

Farragut's— W. H. S. Banks, J. E. Smith, and P. J. Doherty, of 
the National Association of Naval Veterans. 

Grant's — General Wager Swayne, Commander Theron E. Parsons, 
Captain George P. Barrett, aind Major H. A. Wilkins, of the 
Grand Army of the Republic. 

Fulton's — J. J. R. Croes and Charles Hunt, of the American 
Society of Civil Engineers. 

22 



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DEDICATION 



Morse's — G. S. Dunn and F. W. Jones, of the American Institute 
of Electrical Engineers. 

Whitney's — Professor Robert H. Thurston and Henry R. Towne, 
of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. 

Audubon's — William T. Sedgwick, representing the American So- 
ciety of Naturalists. 

Gray's — Dr. B. L. Robinson, Professor B. D. Halsted, G. W. Atkin- 
son, Professor N. L. Britton, and Dr. L. M. Underwood, of the 
Botanical Society of America. 

Edward's — John Willis Baer, representing the Society of Christian 
Endeavor. 









Mann's— Dr. J. M. Green. C. J. Baxter, F. A. Hill, and S. St. J. 
McCutchen, of the National Educational Association. 

Beecher's — Lucian C. Warner, Alfred E. Marling, and F. B. 
Schenck, of the Young Men's Christian Association. 

Adam's — M. P. Ferris and I. F. Lloyd, representing the Sons of the 
Revolution. 

Jefferson's — Samuel E. Gross and E. V. Gazzam, representing the 
Sons of the American Revolution. 

Webster's — Mrs. Charles W. Fairbanks, Mrs Daniel Manning, and 
Mrs. Samuel Verplank, of the Daughters of the American 
Revolution. 

Clay's— Miss A. W. Sterling. Mrs N. S. Keay, and Mrs. H. S. 
Snow, of the Daughters of the Revolution. 

Franklin's — Mrs. E. D. Gillespie and Mrs. William Reed, repre- 
senting the Colonial Dames. 

Washington's — Talbot Olyphant and Asa Gird Gardiner, of the 
Society of the Cincinnati. 

Lee's — Mrs. Edwin G. Weed, Miss Mary F. Meares, Mrs. W. Reade 
and Mrs. Parker, of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. 

Emerson's — Girls from the New York Normal College. 

23 



THE HALL OF FAME 



Hawthorne's — Girls from the Peter Cooper High School. 

Irving's — Girls from the Wadleigh High School. 

Longfellow's — Pupils of the Girl's High School of Brooklyn. 

Replica of Crawford's "Inauguration of Washington" unveiled by 
Mrs. John Lyon Gardiner and Mrs Helen Van Cortlandt de 
Peyster, of the Colonial Dames. 

Chancellor MacCracken opened the ceremonies with a 
brief speech of welcome to the guests, and then introduced 
the orator of the day, Chauncey M. Depew, United States 
Senator for New York. 

It is to be regretted that no complete report was made 
of Senator Depew's speech, which many who heard felt to be 
worthy of his great fame as an orator. Some paragraphs, 
however, were preserved, among which are the following: 

" It is doubtful if in any period but ours, the great 
statesman, writer or artist ranked with the soldier. It is the 
distinction of our time that, with advancing civilization, we 
dedicate beside the panel devoted to the warrior, equal honor 
in the Hall of Fame for authors and editors, rulers and 
statesmen, judges and lawyers, preachers and theologians, 
philanthropists, educators, musicians, painters and sculptors, 
physicians and surgeons, missionaries and explorers. It 
has been reserved for the close of the nineteenth century 
to elevate to lasting distinction those leaders of industries 
whose labors have benefited mankind, the scientists, in- 
ventors, engineers, architects and men of business. This 
colonnade gives to creative genius equal rank and honor 
with the destructive talent which has ever commanded the 
admiration of the world. 

" The people of all countries have been celebrating the 
24 ^ 




Chauncet M. Depew J G. Beown 

Abram S. Hewitt Miss A. ^y. Sterling Lucien C. Warner J. Willis Eaer 

Maj. Gen. Wagek Swatne Lieut. Gen. J M. Schofield Rus.sell Sage Eastman Johnson- 

Mrs. Daniel Manning Mrs. Chas. W. Fairb.4.nks 



SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE WHO TOOK PART IN THE DEDICATION SERVICES (25) 



DEDICATION 



■:^fmit, 



events for each of the last hundred years — the most remark- 
able era of construction and achievement. Even its wars 
resulted in the unification under one government of kindred 
races, the enlargement of popular liberty and marvelous 
material development. The ringing out of the nineteenth 
century was accompanied by shouting and hallelujahs over 
victories which had subdued the powers of the earth, the 
waters and the air to the service of man, and an equally 
beneficent evolution in human rights. It was a happy 
thought which moved the donor of this Hall of Fame, in the 
midst of these rejoicings, to found a temple to enshrine the 
memorials of the architects of this triumph; the supreme 
intelligences whose labors and initiative have caused the 
nineteenth to stand out high, conspicuous and unapproach- 
able in its grandeur among the centuries. 

" It is properly built in the metropolis of the continent, 
the great city in which are rapidly concentrating worldwide 
influences. Under the protection and care of a vigorous 
and growing institution of liberal learning its purposes will 
be kept lofty and pure, and its educational value enhanced. 
Standing on the banks of the noble Hudson and at the gate- 
way of the New World, it welcomes from every section of 
the country all who are worthy to sit as peers in the company 
of the immortals, who form its first parliament. There has 
been the broadest catholicity of judgment and no passions or 
prejudices of sectarianisms, parties or creeds among the 
judges. The action of the tribunal is a remarkable exhibit 
of the disappearance of the bitterness of the Civil War. 
Though a large majority of the electors were from the 
North, General Lee is placed beside General Grant, and 
Lincoln received every vote from the South save one. 

27 




THE HALL OF FAME 



^ 




" The gentlemen upon whom has developed the first 
selection have found in the wide field open to their choice 
only twenty-nine whom a majority thought fit to fill the 
panels of this hall. There may be disappointment and mor- 
tification that, after three hundred years of settlement in our 
country and one hundred years of national life, the harvest 
should be so small. But our situation was unique and 
original. We were not a conquering people, absorbing and 
adopting the civilization, arts and accumulations of a subject 
nation. By slow, laborious and perilous processes the pri- 
meval forests had to be cut, and the wilderness subdued for 
the settlement and support of the colonists. Savages and 
soil were inhospitable to these scattered and adventurous 
families seeking homes and liberty of conscience in an 
unknown and unexplored land across the sea. In the exper- 
iments of new forms of government and the turbulent 
development of free institutions, there was neither thought 
nor opportunity nor time for art or literature or science, or 
those great battles which decide history and the fate of 
nations. 

" We have now no Tennysons, nor Longfellows, nor 
Hawthornes, nor Emersons. Perhaps it is because our 
Michael Angelos are planning tunnels under rivers and 
through mountains for the connection of vast systems of 
railways, and our Raphaels are devising some novel method 
for the utilization of electrical power ; our Shakespeares are 
forming gigantic combinations of corporate bodies, our 
Tennysons are giving rein to fancy and imagination in wild 
speculations in stocks, and our Hawthornes and Emersons 
have abandoned the communings with and revelations of 
the spirit and soul which lift their readers to a vision 

28 



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DEDICATION 



& 



of the higher life and the joy of its inspiration, to exploit 
mines and factories. 

" When this period of evolution is over, and nations and 
communities have become adjusted to normal conditions, the 
fever and the passion of the race for quick wealth and enor- 
mous riches v^ill be over. Then the grove, the academy and 
the study will again become tenanted with philosophers, 
poets, historians and interpreters of God in man. Unless 
this shall happen, then let the luxuries and opportunities, 
and the evanescent earthly pleasures which come from leader- 
ship in business be the rewards of the successful ; but reserve 
the Temple of Fame for those only whose deeds and thoughts 
are the inheritance, education, inspiration and aspiration of 
endless generations. 

" The process of the elimination of reputations from 
current knowledge grows more destructive with each gen- 
eration until cycles are marked by one survival. The 
influence of that one is felt in our patriotism, in our national 
existence and power, in our mental growth and expansion, 
in our incentives to thought and action, in the spark which 
fires our genius or the divine touch which frees our spirit and 
soul from the harsh materialism of daily cares, and brings 
us into communion with the higher life — its aims, its associa- 
tions, its victories and its joys. Great men and women 
make history, and their lives distinguish countries and cen- 
turies. Let the court meet here every decade and select for 
this Hall of Fame those whom they believe deserve most of 
the Republic. Let there be gathered in the museum the 
precious relics, statues and memorials of the elect. The 
ceremony with each repetition will enlist a larger interest 
and closer scrutiny of worth. It will make more difficult 

29 




THE HALL OF FAME 



the task of the judges, and more certain the permanence 
of their choice. It will cultivate the study and with it the 
emulation of greatness. In the cemeteries of France graves 
are leased for periods of five, ten, or twenty or fifty years, 
and in perpetuity. As the terms of the leases expire, the 
bones are dug up and dumped into the common receptacle 
to make room for newer tenants. So in time in this Hall of 
Fame winnowing will attend selection. Only the tenants 
who, by the judgment of posterity, hold their titles in per- 
petuity will remain, and they will have fame." 

Two incidents not on the programme attracted some 
attention. One was sentimental and the other humorous. 
Flowers had been placed before several of the tablets. 
General Lee's especially was almost hidden by wreaths and 
palms. General Grant's had only one offering, and that was 
a tribute from the South. It bore the card of Miss Mary F. 
Mears, of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. 

The humorous incident occurred when the homeward 
rush for the railway train set in. The ushers endeavored 
to restrain the people as they mounted the car steps, and 
one young fellow firmly requested Miss Helen Gould to step 
back into line. She took it good humoredly. When it had 
been explained to the usher who she was, he lost no time in 
assuring her that she could go anywhere she chose. 

Several times as Miss Helen Gould passed and repassed 
in the grounds, large groups of people would burst out into 
cheers for her and wave their handkerchiefs energetically. 
The crowd at the dedication evidently had no doubt of the 
truth of the report, that she was the giver of the first one 
hundred thousand dollars which made possible the Hall of 
Fame. 

30 




CHAPTER III. 



AMERICA'S NEW SHRINE 



THE dedication of the Hall of Fame evoked editorial 
notice and discussion in thousands of newspapers 
throughout the length and breadth of the land. Two 
of these are of such ability and interest as to be of special 
value to our readers. The New York Tribune of May 31, 
the day following the dedication, in an editorial entitled 
" The Nation's New Shrine," said : 

" The first Memorial Day of the twentieth century has 
come and gone. It was true to the best spirit of the old 
observance. It was marked with all the tender tributes 
and solemn pageantries which for a full generation have 
yearly made that day one of the most impressive of all our 
public holidays. Its patriotic significance was well main- 
tained, perhaps more perfectly than ever before. For there 
is patriotism in change as well as in constancy. The dead 
who did not die in vain will never be forgotten, nor will 
the cause for which they fought, and which through their 
sacrifice was rescued and preserved. But that cause is now 
so abundantly secure that it is possible to let the old rancor 
and bitterness pass away, and to mark each recurring anni- 
versary with an access of fraternal unity throughout the 
nation. Forgetfulness of hatred may now prevail in equal 
measure with memory of valor. And so it is of auspicious 

31 



THE HALL OF FAME 



omen that this first Memorial Day of the new century was 
marked with a formal recognition of the fact that the two 
great rival warriors of our civil strife have passed from 
controversy into history, and that side by side they are 
henceforth to stand in the nation's Hall of Fame. 

" That was one obvious feature of the fine ceremonial 
which was yesterday enacted on University Heights, a fea- 
ture which made the deed peculiarly appropriate to the day. 
It was not, however, its sole or indeed its most important 
feature. For the Hall of Fame, of which New York City 
is the fitting site and New York University is the no less 
appropriate custodian, transcends in its scope the limits of 
a single war and of all wars, and even, we might almost 
say, of patriotism itself — assuredly of merely militant pa- 
triotism. It is an epitome of all phases of the nation's many- 
sided greatness. ' The kind of men the nation produces,' said 
Emerson, ' is the true measure of the nation's greatness.' 
This hall is the sample room of the nation's m.anhood. In 
it are enshrined the names of representative men, in peace 
and war, in thought and in action, in literature and in com- 
merce, in art and in invention, in the learned professions 
and in the practical pursuits. In some lands men of great 
achievements have been worshiped as gods. In all lands 
the records and examples of great men have been cherished 
as worthy of observation and of emulation. Surely it is 
well that this land should thus gather into one place some 
brief memorials of those whom it loves to honor, to be a 
shrine of patriotic memory and of inspiring contemplation. 

" ' Comparisons are odious,' yet they are not to be feared 
by the Hall of Fame, which stands unique and supreme in 
its fulfilment of the purpose of such a building. True, it is 

32 



«c«] 



AMERICA'S SHRINE 



[oaa 



far surpassed in age and in illustrious associations by West- 
minster Abbey. But the Abbey can lay small title to be 
England's Pantheon, with the dust of Shakespeare and Byron 
and Bacon laid elsewhere. Indeed, the great majority 
of famous Englishmen were buried outside that famous 
temple. The Temple of Fame at Munich may surpass this 
in some details of splendor. But its eighty immortals by no 
means represent the Bavarian nation, as the twenty-nine al- 
ready chosen at New York University do, and those hence- 
forth to be added to them will represent the people, the 
genius and the greatness of this nation. Neither one of 
these nor any other such institution is comparable with our 
Hall of Fame in the catholicity and comprehensiveness of its 
scope, in its freedom from ecclesiastical, political, personal 
or other influence, apart from the simple merit of its sub- 
jects, and in the nationally representative manner in which 
the subjects of its commemoration are chosen. Not favor, 
not caprice, not chance, not power, but simply ' the com- 
mon sense of most,' determines what names shall be in- 
scribed upon its walls. If to these we add this other singu- 
lar and honorable circumstance, that instead of being bla- 
zoned forth as that of a munificent benefactor, the name of 
the generous giver of the hall is modestly withheld, so that 
the building stands as a memorial to the illustrious dead, 
and not as a self-glorification of its builder, he must be blind 
indeed, who does not perceive in this Hall of Fame a national 
shrine which the university may well be proud to own, the 
city to cherish and the nation to regard." 

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, whose accomplished editor, 
St. Clair McKelway, had taken great interest in the Hall 
of Fame from the start, and who was one of the judges, 

33 



THE HALL OF FAME 



also discussed the completed scheme on the occasion of its 
dedication in a very interesting way. The editor says: 

" Of all the ceremonies in honor of the dead yesterday, 
the most important was the dedication of the Hall of Fame 
at New York University. Its significance will be seen more 
clearly as the years go by and with each decade the judges 
select ten more names to place with the twenty-nine honored 
yesterday. A national Pantheon is an instinct with any 
strong people. The desire has been stirring among the 
people of the United States since the recovery from the Civil 
War has shown that we were a nation, bound together by 
indissoluble ties and destined for a great place in history. 
That desire has at last found its accomplishment, thanks to 
patriotic generosity. It is not insignificant that the opening 
of the Pantheon comes in the first year of the new century, 
which is fated to see the United States more than ever the 
states united, and for the first time recognized, not as a peo- 
ple apart, devoted to an iridescent dream of liberty, but 
admitted to full equality in the sisterhood of nations and 
taking a leading part in world affairs by reason of its wealth 
and power, as well as of its priceless ideals of human 
liberty. 

" And it is not insignificant, either, that of fifty possible 
names which might have been chosen for recognition at this 
dedication, but twenty-nine tablets were unveiled yesterday. 
In his fine oration Senator Depew drew the distinction be- 
tween fame and reputation, and he pointed out what should 
be the future policy of this Pantheon in his adjuration: 
* Reserve the Temple of Fame for those only whose deeds 
and thoughts are the inheritance, education, inspiration and 
aspiration of endless generations.* The high standards and 

34 



AMERICA'S SHRINE 



'm^M 



stern limits which the judges, acting without consultation, 
set for the men of their choice, show that the idea which 
Senator Depew voiced had guided the selection of these 
names, few but fit. 

" The subsidence of the ideal of bigness in the leading 
minds of the country, from among whom the judges for the 
Hall of Fame were chosen, is another evidence of the matur- 
ity and hardening of our intellectual fibre as a people. When 
their decision was announced, there was of course, much 
surprise and some protest that the names selected were so 
few. But even in six months' time that feeling has disap- 
peared, and there is general acquiescence in the list to whom 
tablets were yesterday unveiled. It is the sober judgment of 
the best thought of the country and not a spread eagle 'boom' 
to count up the longest roll of honor possible, names many of 
which would inevitably be thrown out by our children as the 
perspective of history grows longer. A national Pantheon is 
a product of a ripe national life and matured feeling. Such 
conditions are not the growth of a generation; they have 
hardly been the growth of a century in the days before steam 
and electricity have come so near to converting us into our 
own posterity. 

" At last the aspiration of years is realized. We have a 
really national Hall of Fame. The winnowing of the tem- 
porary from the permanent in the achievement of our people 
has been well begun. As it goes on, decade by decade, this 
colonnade on University Heights will become more and more 
a national landmark. 

" The ceremonies of yesterday, by which it was so hap- 
pily dedicated, will stand forth as an historical occasion 
which supplied a new ambition to every American worker 

Z7 






THE HALL OF FAME 




who believes that there is more in life than wealth and power. 
In the midst of a materialism so splendid that the traditions 
of Babylon and Rome dwindle by comparison, the inaugura- 
tion of a monument to all those labors which make mankind 
nobler and not merely richer is timely. 

" It is an achievement to rank with the great things in 
the fields which Senator Depew truly said engrossed so much 
of the energy of this generation of Americans as to leave us 
almost without commanding leaders in literature and the arts. 
If his prophecy that the day of the poets and the artists will 
return comes true, not the least of the stimulus to sustained 
effort along the road of idealism will come from this Hall of 
Fame." 





WASHINGTON 




CHAPTER IV. 
GEORGE WASHINGTON 

"■ // all the dispositions and habits zvhich lead to political 
prosperity, religion and morality arc indispensable supports, 
reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national 
morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles. 
Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institu- 
tions for the general diffusion of knowledge." Inscription 

ON THI5 TABLET ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OE GEORGE WASH- 
INGTON IN THE Hall oe Fame. 

HE who rightfully stands first in the Hall of Fame for 
eminent Americans, George Washington, was born 
Saturday, February 22, 1732. He was the first child 
of his mother, who, according to the quaint language used 
in his father's will, was the father's " second venture " on the 
sea of matrimony. Mary Ball was a young woman of strik- 
ing beauty, and a belle in the neighborhood where she lived 
at the time of her marriage to Augustine Washington. At 
the time her first born son, destined to be the first American, 
came into the world, she was twenty-eight years old. Au- 
gustine Washington, the father, was thirty-eight, and already 
the father of four children by a former wife. 

The house in which Washington was born stood near 
the Potomac River, at Bridges Creek, in Washington Parish, 

39 



<J 




THE HALL OF FAME 



Westmoreland County, Virginia. It had been the home of 
the Washingtons from the time of the landing of the first 
ancestor in 1657. It was a plain, wooden farmhouse, with 
four rooms on the ground floor ; above those was an attic 
story, a long roof sloping nearly to the ground on the rear 
side ; with great brick chimneys at each end, affording abun- 
dant space for the large, open fireplaces within. This 
house was burned down when George was three years old, 
and the new house was built on the east side of the Rap- 
pahannock River, opposite the village of Fredericksburg. 

Mr. J. B. Lossing, in The Home of IVashington, gives 
a glance into the childhood period of Washington's life at 
this time. Among his early boy companions was Richard 
Henry Lee, a member of one of the famous families of Vir- 
ginia. In after years they had much to do with each other, 
when serious matters connected with the struggle for na- 
tional independence pressed upon them. Here is a sample 
of their first letter-writing at nine years of age: 

Richard Henry Lee to George Washington : 

Pa brought me two pretty books full of pictures he got them in 
Alexandria they have pictures of dogs and cats and tigers and 
elefants and ever so many pretty things cousin bids me send you one 
of them it has a picture of an elefant and a little Indian boy on his 
back like uncle jo's sani pa says if I learn my tasks good he v^^ill let 
uncle jo bring me to see you will you ask your ma to let you come 
to see me. Richard Henry Lee. 

George Washington to Richard Henry Lee: 

Dear Dickey I thank you very much for the pretty picture- 
book you gave me. Sam asked me to show him the pictures and I 
showed him all the pictures in it ; and I read to him how the tame 
elephant took care of the master's little boy, and put him on his 
back and would not let any body touch his master's liitle son. I 
can read three or four pages sometimes without missing a word. 
Ma says I may go to see you, and stay all day with you next week if 
it be not rainy. She says I may ride my pony Hero if Uncle Ben 

40 




WASHINGTON 



will go with me and lead Hero. I have a little piece of poetry about 
the picture book you gave me, but I mustn't tell you who wrote the 
poetry. 

G. W.'s compliments to R. H. L. 
And likes his book full well, 
Henceforth will count him his friend, 
And hopes many happy days he may spend. 
Your good friend, 

George Washington. 

I am going to get a whip top soon, and you may see and 
whip it. 

Augustine Washington died when George was eleven 
years old, an event which no doubt largely changed his son's 
career. If he had lived, he would undoubtedly have given 
his son an education at Oxford, in England, and with that 
training it is hardly conceivable that he could have been the 
same George Washington which we know. 

George Washington was destined to have a purely 
American education. A Mr. Williams, who kept a sort of 
grammar school at Bridges Creek and a school at Fredericks- 
burg of about the same sort, furnished the future President 
his opportunities for early education. When he was four- 
teen years old, he had a restless epoch when he greatly 
desired to go to sea. His brother, Lawrence Washington, 
now an educated, charming man back from England, favored 
this, and it was for a time decided that he should have the 
chance. His mother dreaded the separation, but finally con- 
sented, and Lawrence Washington obtained for his brother 
a midshipman's warrant in the British Navy. All arrange- 
ments were made, and the day came for him to sail, but at 
the last moment, seeing his mother's great sorrow, and un- 
willing to break her heart at the parting, he changed his 
purpose and declined to go. If he had gone, it is quite 

41 



/Sr>^ 



O? 



THE HALL OF FAME 



^eo 






possible he might be living in history as an English admiral 
instead of being the first name in America's Hall of Fame. 

In 1747 George went to live in the family of his brother 
Lawrence, at Mount Vernon, which was to be ever associated 
in after years, with his own name. A brother-in-law of 
Lawrence, William Fairfax, was the owner of a beautiful 
estate named Belvoir, a few miles from Mount Vernon. 
Lord Fairfax took a great interest in young Washington. 
It was a day when much was made of outdoor sports, and 
in all that sort of thing George Washington easily led. 
Hunting, fishing, riding to the hounds, mountain climbing, 
fencing, boxing, swimming — all these were his delight, and 
the accomplished English lord had for him a great admi- 
ration. 

It was through this friendship with Fairfax that George 
Washington got his first taste of the real work of life. Lord 
Fairfax had immense land estates, containing six millions of 
acres, lying beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains. This vast 
tract of country was unexplored; its resources were un- 
known, except to a few wandering hunters and trappers who 
had pushed westward into its solitudes, stimulated by the 
demands of the fur trade. Fairfax decided on having it sur- 
veyed, and in the spring of 1748, when Washington had just 
passed his sixteenth birthday, he was appointed surveyor of 
the lands beyond the mountains, lying in the " Great Woods." 

Washington's success as a surveyor soon won for him 
a wide reputation in his profession. Lord Fairfax was so 
well pleased with the painstaking work of the young man, 
that he obtained for him the appointment of public surveyor, 
thus securing for him steady employment. He worked at 
this for three years, earning from three to twenty dollars 

42 






WASHINGTON 



[ea« 



per day, and he laid the foundation for his great wealth by 
investing his wages in rich tracts of land. 

In 1 75 1 Lawrence Washington fell ill, and George went 
with him to the Bahamas. The brother did not recover, 
but died in July, 1752. And on the death of his only child, 
a little girl, George Washington became the owner of Mount 
Vernon. 

The first public work of Washington began on the 30th 
day of October, 1753. when, bearing a commission as Major 
George Washington, he started to carry a letter from Gov- 
ernor Dinwiddle to the French officer at the advance post in 
what was then known as the Valley of the Ohio. This 
was a dangerous and most responsible undertaking; Wash- 
ington was from the 30th of October until the 4th day of 
December pushing his way through the forest before he 
reached the first outpost. Not finding here the man in 
command, on the 7th of December the indefatigable young 
officer pressed forward sixty miles farther through the snow 
to Fort Le Boeuf, where he delivered his message and re- 
ceived the Frenchman's reply. 

The journey homeward was full of adventure and peril. 
When the pack-horses gave out, Washington left them with 
the majority of the party to come on leisurely, while he, with 
one companion, in Indian dress, pushed forward on foot 
through the woods. 

On one occasion during his return journey, Washing- 
ton was shot at by a treacherous Indian, who was acting as 
their guide. The trials and suflFerings in getting across the 
Ohio River may be best told in Washington's own words: 
" There was no way of getting over but on a raft, which we 
set about making with but one poor hatchet, and finished just 

43 



E^^Pf'^ 



THE HALL OF FAME 



after sunsetting. This was a whole day's work ; we next got 
it launched, then went on board of it, and set off ; but before 
we were half-way over, we were jammed in the ice in such a 
manner that we expected every moment our raft to sink and 
ourselves perish. I put out my setting-pole to try to stop 
the raft, that the ice might pass by, when the rapidity of the 
stream threw it with so much violence against the pole that 
it jerked me out into ten feet of water; but I fortunately 
saved myself by catching hold of one of the raft logs. 

" Notwithstanding all our efforts, we could not get to 
either shore; but were obliged, as we were near an island, 
to quit our raft, and make to it. The cold was so extremely 
severe that Mr. Gist had all his fingers and some of his toes 
frozen, and the water was shut up so hard that we found no 
difficulty in getting off the island on the ice in the morning, 
and went to Mr. Frazier's." 

Washington's journal, which he kept on this trip, was 
published both in Virginia and in England, and made him 
known as a rising young man. As a reward for his services 
on the Ohio expedition, Washington was promoted to the 
position of lieutenant-colonel of a Virginia regiment. On 
the 28th of Alay, 1754, he had his first baptism of blood on 
the battle-field against the French, in which the French 
Commander Jumonville was killed, and Washington was 
victorious. Through the death of his colonel he now came 
to be in command of the regiment. 

The next step in George Washington's growing fame 
was the battle known as Braddock's defeat. The English 
general, Braddock, a brave and gallant man, but who knew 
nothing about forest fighting, marched his troops into the 
backwoods to fight the French and Indians with the same 

44 



WASHINGTON 



k 



formalities that he would have used on a European battle- 
field. Washington begged him to send ahead the Virginia 
Rangers, who were acquainted with the habits of the Indians. 
The proud Braddock refused, and marched his army for- 
ward in splendid columns to the ford of the Monongahela 
River. Washington was very much impressed by the splen- 
did appearance of the army as it crossed the river. The 
dark green of the forest contrasting with the bright scarlet 
uniforms of the soldiers, the mid-day sunlight flashing from 
the bright bayonets and sword hilts, the army moving for- 
ward to the strains of the Grenadier's Alarch — all of these 
features of that dreadful day were so firmly set in the mem- 
ory of Washington that he frequently recalled them in after 
years. 

The army was scarcely across the river when a man, 
dressed in buckskin uniform and wearing the badge of a 
French officer, came out of the woods. He looked at the 
advancing army for a moment, then turned his face towards 
the forest, and waved his hat high over his head. It was 
the signal for the concealed French and Indians to open fire. 
The ambushed enemy poured volley after volley into the 
compact English ranks at point-blank range. It was terrible 
carnage. The officers stood to their posts like brave men. 
General Braddock and Washington bravest among them. 
Dead men were all about them, and yet the English could 
see no living enemy against whom to direct their fire, so they 
shot wildly into the woods. 

General Braddock was learning at sad cost that trees 
and boulders could be utilized in battle with more telling 
results than orderh- battle-lines firing in platoons. Five 
horses were shot under Braddock in quick succession, and 

45 



THE HALL OF FAME 




finally a bullet pierced his lungs, and he fell. After that 
event the army broke in confusion and fled. Sixty-three 
officers out of eight-five were either killed or wounded, 
and out of thirteen hundred men engaged, five hundred were 
killed or wounded. During the fight Washington did his 
utmost to carry out the plans of General Braddock. With 
furious energy and courage he threw himself into the midst 
of the slaughter. Three horses were shot under him, and, 
although he escaped uninjured, his clothes were cut in many 
places by bullets. 

Many years afterwards, when Washington visited the 
region of this battle on a peaceful mission, an old Indian 
came to see him as a wonder. " He had," he said, " leveled 
his rifle so often at him without effect, that he became per- 
suaded he was under the special protection of the Great 
Spirit, and gave up the attempt." 

When the brave Braddock fell, Washington's first care 
was for the wounded general : his next employment, to ride 
to the reserve camp of Dunbar, forty miles, for aid and 
supplies. Returning with the requisite assistance, he met 
the wounded Braddock on the retreat. Painfully borne along 
the road, the general survived the engagement several days, 
and reached the Great Meadows to die and be buried there 
by the broken remnant of his army. Washington read the 
funeral service, the British chaplain being disabled by a 
wound. 

Writing to his brother, he attributed his own protec- 
tion, " beyond all human probability or expectation," to the 
" all-powerful dispensations of Providence." The natural 
and pious sentiment was echoed, shortly after, from the 
pulpit of the excellent Samuel Davies, in Hanover County, 

46 





WASHINGTON 



Virginia. "I may point," said he, in illustration of his 
patriotic purpose of encouraging new recruits for the ser- 
vice, in words since that time often pronounced prophetic, 
" to that heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot 
but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in so signal a 
manner for some important service to his country." 

In January, 1759, Washington was married to Mrs. 
Martha Custis, of the White House, county of New Kent. 
This lady, born in the same year with himself, and conse- 
quently in the full bloom of youthful womanhood, at twen- 
ty-seven, was the widow of a wealthy landed proprietor 
whose death had occurred three years before. Her maiden, 
name was Dandridge, and she was of Welsh descent. The 
prudence and gravity of her disposition eminently fitted her 
to be the wife of Washington. She was her husband's sole 
executrix, and managed with ability the complicated affairs 
of the estates which he had left, involving the raising of 
crops and sale of them in Europe. Her personal charms, 
too, in these days of her widowhood, are highly spoken of. 

The honeymoon was the inauguration of a new and 
pacific era of Washington's hitherto troubled military life. 
Yet even this repose proved the introduction to new public 
duties. With a sense of the obligations befitting a Virginia 
gentleman, Washington had offered himself to the suffrages 
of his fellow countrymen at Winchester, and been elected a 
member of the House of Burgesses. 

About the time of his marriage, he took his seat, when 
an incident occurred which has been often narrated. The 
Speaker, by a vote of the House, having been directed to 
return thanks to him for his eminent military services, at 
once performed the duty with Vv^armth and eloquence.. 

47 



THE HALL OF FAME 



Washington rose to express his thanks, but, never vokibie 
before the pubhc, became too embarrassed to utter a syllable, 
" Sit down, Mr. Washington," was the courteous relief of 
the gentleman who had addressed him. " Your modesty 
equals your valor, and that surpasses the power of any lan- 
guage I possess." He continued a member of the House, 
diligently attending to its business till he was called to the 
work of the Revolution, in this way, adding to his experi- 
ences in war familiarity with the practical duties of a legis- 
lator and statesman. 

Washington had fifteen years of peaceful life at Mount 
Vernon before the Revolution called him forth again to 
long and weary years of war. He took part in the local 
Virginia resolutions, and on the meeting of the First 
Congress in Philadelphia, went up to that honored body 
with Patrick Henry and Edmond Pendleton. He was also 
a member of the Second Continental Congress which met 
at Philadelphia in May, 1775, its members gathering to the 
deliberations with throbbing hearts, the musketry of Lex- 
ington ringing in their ears. 

The overtures of war by the British troops in Massa- 
chusetts had gathered a little provincial army about Boston ; 
a national organization was a measure no longer of choice, 
but of necessity. A commander-in-chief was to be ap- 
pointed, and though the selection was not altogether free 
from local jealousies, the superior merit of Washington was 
seconded by the superior patriotism of the Congress, and on 
the 15th of June he was unanimously elected by ballot to 
the high position. 

His modesty in accepting the office was as noticeable 
as his fitness for it. He was not the man to flinch from any 

48 




duty, because it was hazardous; but is is worth knowing-, 
that we may form a due estimate of his character, that he 
feh to the quick the full force of the sacrifices of ease and 
happiness that he was making, and the new difficulties he 
was inevitably to encounter. He was so impressed with the 
probabilities of failure, and so little disposed to vaunt his 
own powers, that he begged gentlemen in the House to 
remember, " lest some unlucky event should happen unfa- 
vorable to his reputation," that he thought himself, " with 
the utmost sincerity, unequal to the command he was hon- 
ored with." With a manly spirit of patriotic independence, 
worthy the highest eulogy, he declared his intention to keep 
an exact account of his public expenses, and accept nothing 
more for his services — a resolution which was faithfully 
kept to the letter. With these disinterested preliminaries, 
he proceeded to Cambridge, and took command of the army 
on the 3d of July. 

It is no part of this brief biographical sketch to write 
the history of the American Revolution. At the treaty of 
peace Washington was fifty-one years of age, and had glori- 
ously discharged the duties of two memorable eras — the war 
with France, and the war with Great Britain ; a third service 
to his country remained, her direction in the art of govern- 
ment in the formation of the Constitution. Many minis- 
tered to that noble end, but none more anxiously, or more 
perseveringly than Washington. His authority carried the 
heart and intelligence of the country with it, and he was 
placed, by common consent, at the head of the Convention 
in 1787, which gave a government to the scattered States, 
and made America a nation. 

Once more he was called to listen to the highest de- 
49 




c^-^ 




ias& 



THE HALL OF FAME 



'fi 



mands of his country in his unanimous election to the Pres- 
idency. With what emotions, with what humble resigna- 
tion to the voice of duty, with how little vain ambition we 
easily discover as we read the entry in his diary written 
on the i6th of April, 1789. In that book he writes : " About 
ten o'clock I bade adieu to Mount Vernon, to private life, 
and to domestic felicity; and with a mind oppressed with 
more anxious and painful sensations than I have words to ex- 
press, set out for New York with the best disposition to 
render service to my country in obedience to its call, but 
with less hope of answering- its expectations." His inaugu- 
ration took place in New York City on the 30th of April, 
1789. Political parties were soon at work in the govern- 
ment — the Conservative and the Progressive, such as have 
always arisen in every human society. The rival statesmen, 
during Washington's first administration, were Hamilton 
and Jefferson. But Washington thought only of the wel- 
fare of the country, and refused to be influenced by factional 
feeling. At the close of his second administration, to which 
he had been chosen without a dissenting voice, he turned his 
thoughts toward Mount Vernon with great desire. He 
would have been welcome to a third term, but he refused 
to listen to the suggestion. 

Washington remained quietly in Mount Vernon, loved 
and honored by all during the remaining years of his life, 
called forth but once to take command of the army when it 
was thought there might be war with France. That war 
cloud happily passed away and did not long disturb his 
thoughts. He was at his home at Mount Vernon, intent on 
public affairs, and making his rounds in his usual farm 
occupations, with a vigor and hardihood which had abated 

50 






S2& 

WASHINGTON 



little for his years, when, on the 12th of December, he suf- 
fered some considerable exposure from a storm of snow and 
rain which came on while he was out, and in which he con- 
tinued his ride. It proved, the next day, that he had taken 
cold, but he made light of it, and passed his usual evening 
cheerfully with the family circle. He became worse during 
the night with inflammation of the throat. He was seriously 
ill. Having sent for his old army surgeon. Dr. Craik, he was 
bled by his overseer, and again on the arrival of the physician. 
All was of no avail, and he calmly prepared to die. " I am 
not afraid," said he, " to go," while with ever thoughtful 
courtesy he thanked his friends and attendants for their little 
attentions. 

Thus the day wore away, till ten in the night, when his 
end was fast approaching. He noticed the failing moments, 
his last act being to place his hand upon his pulse, and calmly 
expired. It was the 14th of December, 1799. His remains 
were interred in the grave on the bank at Mount Vernon, 
in front of his residence, and there, in no long time, accord- 
ing to her prediction at the moment of his death, his wife, 
Martha, whose miniature he always wore on his breast, was 
laid beside him. 



!»«• 

[0O* 




51 




CHAPTER V. 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



With malice tozvards none, u'ifh charity for all, zvith 
firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us 
strive on to finish the zvork zve are in." Inscription on 

THE TABLET ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OE ABRAHAM LiNCOEN 

IN THE Hall oe Fame. 



BRAHAM LINCOLN was 



in a humble los" 



/-\ cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky, on the 12th of 
• February, 1809. Here he spent the first year or 
two of his childhood, when the family moved to another 
log cabin some miles distant from the first, where he spent 
the next seven years of his life. Thomas Lincoln, the father 
of Abraham, was a well-built man of five feet ten and a 
half inches high. He was not a man of much enterprise. 
He was good-natured and honest, but he lacked the push 
and hardihood necessary to make his way in the world. 
He had had no chance for an education, and determined 
that his children should have the best chance possible, but 
he was not able to do much for them in that respect. 

The mother of Abraham Lincoln was a woman of rare 
quality. She was five feet five inches high, a slender, pale, 
sad and sensitive woman, with much in her nature that 
v/as truly heroic, and much that shrank from the rude life 

52 





ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 96 Votes 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 94 Votes 



U. S. GRANT, 93 Votes 
DANIEL WEBSTER, 96 Votes (53) 



I 



^ 



LINCOLN 



around her. A great man never drew his Hfe sustenance 
from a purer or more womanly bosom than hers ; and Abra- 
ham Lincohi always looked back to her with a love too 
great to be put into words. Long after her sensitive heart 
and weary hands had crumbled into dust, he said to a friend, 
with tears in his eyes : "All that I am, or hope to be, I 
owe to my angel mother — blessings on her memory ! " 

Lincoln's first school was taught by a Mr. Riney. He 
attended this when he was seven years old, for three months. 
His next teacher was Caleb Hazel, who had him in charge 
also for three months. Then the family moved to Indiana, 
and there the mother drooped and died in 1813, when her son 
was in his tenth year. 

During all these childish years Abraham was a great 
reader. Every book upon which he could lay his hands he 
read, and the neighbors used his knowledge by having him 
write their letters for them. The books which he had the 
early privilege of reading were the Bible, JBsop's Fables, 
Pilgrim's Progress, Wecms' Life of Washington, and the 
Life of Henry Clay. 

Abraham Lincoln spent the first twenty-one years of his 
life surrounded by these rude conditions. Most of the time 
he was working for others, receiving only the humblest 
wages in return, reading every book upon which he could lay 
his hand, pursuing various studies in the intervals of toil, 
with special attention to arithmetic, faithfully discharging 
his duties to his father and to his brothers and sisters, 
picking up bits of information from neighbors and new- 
comers, growing in wisdom and practical sagacity, and 
achieving a place in the good-will and respect of all with 
whom he came in contact, thus the thirteen years of his life in 

55 



^^S^ 



5»^:-l\^ 




THE HALL OF FAME 




Indiana wore away. With a constitution like iron he had 
arrived at his majority. He could read and write, and had 
a plain knowledge of arithmetic. He knew nothing of Eng- 
lish grammar. But the things he did know, he knew well. 
What he had read and studied he had thoroughly digested, 
and it had become a part of his very life. 

In one thing young Abraham Lincoln was extraordi- 
narily fortunate. Though living among the roughest of men, 
the majority of whom were addicted to coarse vices, he never 
acquired a vice. There was no taint upon his moral char- 
acter. No stimulant ever entered his lips, and no man ever 
heard him utter blasphemous or profane language. He 
loved to tell a story, and could tell one better than any man 
in the country except his father, from whom he inherited 
the taste and talent. He was a great talker, a warm lover of 
social intercourse, always good natured, honest and truthful, 
thoroughly believed in and popular wherever he was known. 

In 1830, Abraham Lincoln moved with his father to 
Illinois, a journey of two hundred miles, which it took them 
fifteen days to make. Here Abraham assisted his father 
in building a log cabin, helped him to split rails enough to 
fence in a lot of ten acres, built the fence, and after breaking 
up the little field and planting it with corn, he turned over 
the new home to his father, and declared his intention to go 
forth and make his own fortune. He did not go out of the 
community, however, but worked among the neighboring 
farmers, picking up enough to keep himself clothed, being 
constantly on the outlook for better chances. It is remem- 
bered that during this time he broke up fifty acres of prairie, 
with four yoke of oxen, and that he spent most of the winter 
following splitting rails and chopping wood. 

56 




y?P. 



mi 



mmm 



LINCOLN 



y<■•:•A;'v:-^ 



^, 




A man who worked with Abraham during this first year 
in Illinois, said afterwards that at that time he was the 
rouc?hest looking person he ever saw. He was tall, angular 
and^ ungainly, and wore trousers made of flax and tow, cut 
tight at the ankle and out at both knees. He was known to 
be very poor, but he was a welcome guest in every house 
in the neighborhood. Money was a commodity never reck- 
oned upon. Abraham split rails to get clothing, and he 
made a bargain with Mrs. Nancy Miller to split four hun- 
dred rails for every yard of brown jeans, dyed with white 
walnut bark, that would be necessary to make him a pair of 
trousers. In those days he used to walk five, six and seven 
miles to his work. 

The next year Lincoln was employed to keep store for 
Denton Offutt, and used the spare time between customers 
for the study of English grammar. There was not a text- 
book to be obtained in the neighborhood, but hearing that 
there was a copv of Kirkham's Grammar in the possession 
of a person seven or eight miles distant, he walked to his 
house, and succeeded in borrowing it. During this year he 
was also much engaged with debating clubs, often walkmg 
six or seven miles to attend them. One of these clubs held 
its meetings in an old storehouse in New Salem, and the 
first speech that young Lincoln ever delivered was made 

there. 

It was while he was performing the duties of country 
storekeeper that he earned the title, " Honest Abe," a title 
he never dishonored, and one which he never outgrew. He 
became judge, referee, and arbitrator in all disputes and m 
all the games of the countryside. He was a peacemaker m 
all sorts of quarrels; everybody's friend; the best natured, 

57 





the strongest, and, at the same time, the gentlest young 
fellow in the community. 

In 1834, Abraham Lincoln bought a copy of Black- 
stone at an auction in Springfield, and looked it over. But 
he did not begin to study law until a little later. In the 
same year he was elected to the Legislature, and a lawyer 
named Stuart advised him to study law. Lincoln said he 
was poor — ^that he had no money to buy books, or to live 
where books might be borrowed and used. Major Stuart 
offered to lend him all he needed, and he decided to take the 
kind lawyer's advice and accept his offer. At the close of 
the canvass which resulted in his election to the Legislature, 
he walked to Springfield, borrowed all the books he could 
carry, from Stuart, and took them home with him to New 
Salem. Here he began the study of law in good earnest, 
though with no teacher. He studied while he had anything 
to eat, and then started out on a surveying tour, to earn 
money to buy more provisions. Day after day, and week 
after week, he sat and read law books under an oak tree on 
a hill near New Salem, moving around to keep in the shade, 
as the sun moved. He was so much absorbed in his law 
studies that people began to whisper it about that he was 
going crazy. He would sometimes meet and pass his best 
friends without noticing them. 

When the time for the assembly of the Legislature 
approached, Lincoln dropped his law books, shouldered his 
pack, and, on foot, trudged to Vandalia, then the capital of 
the State, a distance of about a hundred miles, to make his 
entrance into public life. He was constantly in his place, 
and faithful in the performance of all the duties that were 
devolved upon him. When the session closed, he walked 

58 



^r^^ 




LINCOLN 



home as he came, and resumed his law and his surveying. 
Lincohi was re-elected to the Legislature, but in the mean- 
time had made no money, and Avalked his hundred miles 
to Vandalia in 1836 as he did in 1834, and when the session 
closed he walked home again. But the time was near at 
hand when he was to begin to stand on a broader foundation. 
In 1837, his kind friend, Major Stuart, proposed that he 
should come and enter into partnership with him in the 
practice of the law. He had been admitted to the Bar the 
autumn before, and he went to his work determined to win. 

For the next few years Abraham Lincoln " rode the 
circuit " from one county seat to another to meet the terms of 
court. It was upon these long and tedious trips that he 
established his reputation as one of the best lawyers in the 
State. He studied his cases with great thoroughness, and 
was so uniformly successful in them that the people re- 
garded him as having no equal. He had been practising 
law but a short time before he was found on one side or the 
other of every important case in the circuit. 

In 1842, having arrived at his thirty-third year, Mr. 
Lincoln married Miss Mary Todd, a daughter of Hon. 
Robert S. Todd, of Lexington, Kentucky. The marriage 
took place in Springfield, Illinois, on the 4th of November. 
It is probable that he married as early as the circumstances 
of his life permitted, for he had always loved the society 
of women, and possessed a nature that took profound de- 
light in intimate female companionship. 

In 1846, Lincoln was elected to a seat in the Thirtieth 
Congress, being the only Whig representative from Illinois. 
His competitor on the Democratic ticket was the Rev. Peter 
Cartwright, the well-known and popular preacher, and the 

59 



f'-'SSf^SISiiim 



THE HALL OF FAME 

stumping campaign which was carried on attracted wide 
attention. In 1847, ^^ took his seat in Congress, and from 
that time on became a notable figure in national politics. 

Lincoln's course in Congress had not been generally 
popular among his constituents and he failed of a renom- 
ination. So, we imagihe quite disappointed with his Con- 
gressional career, he went back to take up the work of his 
law practice. 

Lincoln was a member of the National Whig Conven- 
tion in 1848; he supported the nomination of General Taylor 
for the Presidency in an active canvass of Illinois and 
Indiana. In 1856, he was recommended by the Illinois 
delegation as a candidate for the Vice-Presidency, on the 
Republican ticket, with Colonel Fremont. 

In 1858, he was nominated as candidate for United 
States Senator, in opposition to Stephen A. Douglas, and 
" took the stump " in joint debate with that powerful antag- 
onist of the Democratic party, delivering a series of speeches 
during the summer and autumn, in the chief towns and 
cities of the State. 

In the first of these addresses to the Republican State 
Convention at Springfield, June 17, he uttered a memorable 
declaration on the subject of slavery, much quoted in the 
stirring controversies which afterwards ensued. " We are 
now," he said, " far into the fifth year since a policy was 
initiated with the avowed object, and confident promise, of 
putting an end to slavery agitations. Under the operation 
of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but 
has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease 
until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. ' A house 
divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this govern- 

60 



ment cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. 
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect 
the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. 
It will become all one thing or all the other." 

During the campaign Mr. Lincoln spoke about fifty 
times, yet when he made his last speech his voice was as 
clear and vigorous as ever. Though there was no question 
that the advantage of the great debate lay with Mr. Lincoln, 
Judge Douglas was re-elected to the United States Senate. 
But Lincoln's day was soon to dawn. 

In the ensuing nomination, in i860, for the Presidency, 
by the National Republican Convention at Chicago, Mr. 
Lincoln, on the third ballot, was preferred to Mr. Seward 
by a decided vote, and placed before the country as the can- 
didate of the Republican Freesoil party. He had three rivals 
in the field ; Breckinridge, representing the old Southern 
pro-slavery Democratic party ; Douglas, its new, " popular 
sovereignty " modification ; Bell, a respectable, cautious con- 
servatism. In the election, of the entire popular vote, 4,662,- 
170, Mr. Lincoln received 1,866,462; Mr. Douglas, 1,375,- 
157; Mr. Breckinridge, 847,953; and Mr. Bell, 590,631. 
Every free State, except New Jersey, where the vote was 
divided, voted for Lincoln, giving him seventeen out of the 
thirty-three States which then composed the Union. 

With the heroic work of Abraham Lincoln as Presi- 
dent of the United States, through the mightiest civil war 
that ever darkened the skies of any nation, we have no 
space to deal in this brief life sketch. The remarkable wis- 
dom, the almost infinite patience, and the broad humanity 
which he illustrated during those years are now recognized 
by mankind everywhere. 

61 







The tragic end of his wonderful career came just at a 
time when his great heart was full of plans for bringing 
comfort and blessing to the regions that had been blighted 
by civil war. 

On the evening of the 14th of April, the President, 
accompanied by his wife, a daughter of Senator Harris, and 
Major Rathbone, of the United States army, attended by 
invitation the performances at Ford's Theatre, where a 
large audience was assembled to greet him. When the play 
had reached the third act, about nine o'clock, as the Presi- 
dent was sitting at the front of the private box near the 
stage, he was deliberately shot from behind by an assassin, 
John Wilkes Booth, the leader of a gang of conspirators, 
who had been for some time intent, in concert with the re- 
bellion, upon taking his life. The ball entered the back part 
of the President's head, penetrated the brain, and rendered 
him, on the instant, totally insensible. He was removed by 
his friends to a house opposite the theatre, lingered in a 
state of unconsciousness during the night, and expired at 
twenty-two minutes past seven o'clock on the morning of 
the 15th. 

Thus fell, cruelly murdered by a vulgar assassin, at the 
moment of national victory, with his mind intent upon the 
happier future of the Republic, with thoughts of kindness 
and reconciliation toward the vanquished enemies of the 
State, the President who had just been placed by the sober 
judgment of the people a second time as their representative 
in the seat of executive authority. The blow was a fearful 
one. It created in the mind of the nation a feeling of horror 
^^ilw'^^ and pity, which was witnessed in the firmest resolves and 
tenderest sense of commiseration. 

62 







All parties throughout the loyal States united in dem- 
onstrations of respect and affection. Acts of mourning 
were spontaneous and universal. Business was everywhere 
suspended, while the people assembled to express their ad- 
miration and love of the President so foully slain, and to 
devote themselves anew to the cause — their own cause — for 
the assertion of which he had been stricken down. 

When the funeral took place, the long procession, as 
it took its way from Washington through Pennsylvania, 
New York, Ohio and Indiana, to the President's home in 
Illinois, was attended, at every step, with unprecedented 
funeral honors ; orations were delivered in the large cities, 
crowds of mourners by night and day witnessed the solemn 
passage of the train on the long lines of railway ; a half 
million of persons, it was estimated, looked upon the face of 
their departed President and friend. 




63 




"I profess in my career hitherto to have kept steadily 
in z'icw the prosperity and honor of the zvJiole country and 
the preservation of our Federal Union." Inscription on 

THU TABLET ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF DaNIEL WEBSTER 

in the Hall of Fame. 



^iM^ 



D 



^ANIEL WEBSTER, who will hold rank through all 
lime as one of the greatest orators and statesmen of 
the world, was born January i8, 1782, at Salisbury, 
New Hampshire. His first education was at the hands of 
his mother, and he said in after years that he could never 
recollect the time when he could not read the Bible. He had 
a few brief terms of instruction in the district schoolhouse, 
but the books which he found in the Salisbury Library he 
counted of more importance. 

It is possible he would have grown up a farmer save 
that he was a feeble lad, and did not promise to be worth 
much on the farm. So his father, seeing that he took 
readily to education, determined to give him as good a 
chance as possible. Webster, writing toward the latter part 
of his life, recalls these words of his father: "My child, 
I now live but for my children ; I could not give your 
elder brother the advantages of knowledge; but I can now 

64 



5->tJfe 








^ 




WEBSTER 



do something- for you. Exert yourself, improve your op- 
portunities — learn, learn, and when I am gone, you will not 
need to go through the hardships which I have undergone, 
and which have made me an old man before my time." 

This was the spirit with which the elder Webster took 
his son to Exeter, New Hampshire, and placed him in the 
Academy. He was then fourteen years of age. There was 
no promise of the orator about him. While he absorbed 
knowledge with marvelous ease he had a great repugnance 
for anything like public speaking. He could not be induced 
by any appeal to go through a simple declamation in the 
presence of the school. He was utterly unable, when his 
name was called, to raise himself from his seat. " When 
the occasion was over," he writes, " I went home and wept 
bitter tears of mortification." 

Daniel Webster spent less than a year at the Academy 
and was afterwards prepared for college by the Rev. Sam- 
uel Wood at Boscawen, New Hampshire, a scholarly young 
clergyman, who taught him for the very love of it. He 
entered Dartmouth College as a Freshman in August, 1797. 
He was from the first a diligent and successful student. 
There is abundant proof of this in the fact that he gained his 
support for a year by superintending a little weekly news- 
paper, for which he made the selections, and to which he 
occasionally contributed, and in his delivery, in his junior 
year, in 1800, of a Fourth of July oration before the people 
of Hanover, the address was printed, and remains to witness, 
in its sounding periods, to his patriotic fervor and his grati- 
tude for the blessings of constitutional government. 

Immediately after his graduation young Webster began 
the studv of law, but Avas soon compelled to lay it aside to 

65 




THE HALL OF FAME 



teach school for a while in Fryebtirg, Maine, in order to help 
his brother Ezekiel through with his college course. His 
first vacation in May, 1802, was devoted to carrying his 
quarter's salary to his brother at Hanover, where he was 
following his own footsteps at Dartmouth College. At 
the close of the year he began again the study of law. He 
proceeded to Boston, with the intention of making his way 
to the front. He had no letters of introduction, and he, who 
was so soon to be the shining light of the Boston Bar, failed 
in his first attempts to gain admission to an ofhce to study. 
He, however, made a vigorous attempt with an eminent man 
who afterwards rose to be Governor of Massachusetts, Chris- 
topher Gore. In the interview, the youth was thrown upon 
his best address and succeeded in securing the coveted open- 
ing. A good library was now accessible to him, with an 
opportunity of which he availed himself, of attending the 
higher courts. 

He read diligently, and made notes of his observations. 
Just before he was admitted to the Bar in 1805, his father 
secured him a clerkship worth fifteen hundred dollars a year, 
and he was on the point of giving way and accepting it, 
when the earnest advice of his friend, Mr. Gore, decided 
him against it. His father was very much disgusted, and 
said to him, " Well, my son, your mother has always said 
that you would come to something or nothing, she was not 
sure which; I think you are now about settling that doubt 
for her." 

To be near his father, Daniel opened a law office in 
Boscawen, New Hampshire, and remained there until his 
father's death two years later. He then removed to Ports- 
mouth, in the same State. At Portsmouth, in 1808, he was 

66 





married to Miss Grace Fletcher, and continued to reside 
there until 1817. Here he met with almost immediate suc- 
cess in the law, and was very shortly known as one of the 
leading New Hampshire lawyers. His most frequent an- 
tagonist was the celebrated Jeremiah Mason, then in the 
height of his powers. The emulation of the young lawyer 
with this distinguished counsellor, with whom he was often 
associated as well as in opposition, was blended with the 
warmest friendship. Long afterwards, in an eloquent tribute 
to his great friend, Webster said : " I owe much to that 
close attention to the discharge of my duties, which I was 
compelled to pay for nine successive years, from day to 
day, by Mr. Mason's efforts and arguments at the same Bar ; 
and I must have been unintelligent, indeed, not to have 
learned something from the constant displays of that power, 
which I had so much occasion to see and to feel." 

Webster was elected to Congress by the Federal party 
in 18 1 2, and was appointed by the Speaker, Henry Clay, to 
the Committee on Foreign Affairs. War with England 
had just been declared, and the news of the repeal of the 
obnoxious French decrees and English orders in Council, 
which had been so injurious to the commerce of the country, 
had just come to hand. It was in offering a resolution, in 
reference to the Berlin and Milan Decrees, calling out the 
motives of the contest, that Webster, early in the session in 
181 3, delivered his maiden speech. It was listened to, among 
others, by Chief Justice Marshall, who predicted the future 
importance of the orator, destined, he wrote to a friend, to 
become '' one of the very first statesmen in America, and 
perhaps the very first." 

Webster was re-elected to Congress in 1814, and the war 
67 





Ci>>' 



THE HALL OF FAME 



*H^ 



being now ended, entered with zeal into the measures neces- 
sary to the reorganization of the material interests of the 
country. His profession at home, too, was making larger 
demands upon his time, while his private affairs had suffered 
by the destruction of his house and property in a great fire 
in Portsmouth. This, with the growth of his reputation and 
career, determined him upon taking up his residence in 
Boston, a measure which, of course, withdrew him from his 
New Hampshire constituency, and his seat in Congress. 
This temporary absence from Washington enabled him to 
occupy himself in several important professional cases, fore- 
most among them, the first of a series memorable in the 
annals of the Bar, was his final argument before the Su- 
preme Court, in defense of Dartmouth College against the 
interference of the State Legislature. His maintenance, on 
that occasion, of the inviolability of corporate rights, fol- 
lowed by the decision of the Court pronounced by Chief 
Justice Marshall, established collegiate and other property 
on an unassailable foundation. The fervor of his appeal, as 
he pronounced this lofty argument for the college in which 
he had been educated, is said to have produced a remarkable 
effect upon an audience unaccustomed to much personal 
agitation. This case marked his entrance upon the Supreme 
Court of the nation, and is the great landmark of his 
career. 

In 1823, on the 22d of December, two hundred years 
after the landing of the Pilgrims, he delivered his great 
Plymouth oration, which marked the beginning of a series of 
great orations which form an important part of the great 
service Daniel Webster performed for his country. He re- 
viewed the historv of the colonies and civilization from the 

68 



•oo] 

i7 



WEBSTER 






(•s«' 



days of Greece and Rome, and then took brilliant retrospect 
of the early settlement of the Pilgrim Fathers and the growth 
of republican institutions in America. He closed with an in- 
vocation worthy of the best days of ancient oratory : 

" Advance then, ye future generations ! We would hail 
you, as you rise in your long succession, to fill the places 
which we now fill, and to taste the blessings of existence 
where we are passing, and soon shall have passed, our own 
human duration. We bid you welcome to this pleasant 
land of the fathers. We bid you welcome to the healthful 
skies and the verdant fields of New England. We greet 
your accession to the great inheritance which we have en- 
joyed. We welcome you to the blessings of good govern- 
ment and religious liberty. We welcome you to the treasures 
of science and the delights of learning. We welcome you to 
the transcendent sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of 
kindred and parents and children. We welcome you to the 
immeasurable blessings of rational existence, the immortal 
hope of Christianity, and the light of everlasting truth." 

Webster again entered Congress in 1823. In 1824 he 
made his first great Bunker Hill oration at the laying of the 
corner-stone of that monument. Lafayette was present, and 
all the circumstances of the occasion were most imposing. 
In the course of this address he said : 

"We wish that this column, rising toward heaven 
among the pointed spires of so many temples dedicated to 
God, may contribute also to produce in all minds a pious 
feeling of dependence and gratitude. We wish that the last 
object to the sight of him who leaves his native shore, and 
the first to gladden his who revisits it, may be something 
which shall remind him of the liberty and the glory of his 

69 



THE HALL OF FAME 



country. Let it rise ! let it rise till it meet the sun in his 
coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and 
parting day linger and play on its summit." 

Eighteen years later he was chosen as the orator on the 
completion of the great monument. Speaking in the same 
spirit as in his first discourse, he said : 

" The powerful shaft stands motionless before us. It is 
a plain shaft. It bears no inscriptions, fronting to the rising 
sun, from which the future antiquary shall wipe the dust. 
Nor does the rising sun cause tones of music to issue from 
its summit. But at the rising of the sun and at the setting 
of the sun, in the blaze of noonday and beneath the milder 
effulgence of lunar light, it looks, it speaks, it acts to the 
full comprehension of every American mind and the awaken- 
ing of glowing enthusiasm in every American heart." 

A eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, pronounced in 
Faneuil Hall, in August, 1826, was the next of those popular 
discourses delivered by Mr. Webster, ranking with his Ply- 
mouth and Bunker Hill orations. The simultaneous death 
of these two great fathers of the State, on the preceding 
Fourth of July, had deeply affected the mind of the country, 
and expectation was fully alive to the charmed words of the 
orator. In the course of this address occurs the description 
of eloquence often cited, commencing, " true eloquence, in- 
deed, does not consist in speech," and ending with the idea 
of Demosthenes, " in action, noble, sublime, godlike action." 

Webster was elected to the United States Senate in 
1827. It was while on a journey to the Capitol to take his 
seat, that his wife became so ill that he was compelled to 
leave her under medical treatment in New York. He speed- 
ily returned to her, but she soon after died. Webster was a 

70 



WEBSTER 



man of sensitive and tender heart, and this death of his 
wife, whom he loved devotedly, was to him a great calamity. 

Webster's great speech in the debate with Hayne, of 
South Carolina, was delivered on the 26th and 27th of Janu- 
ary, 1830. This is perhaps the climax of Webster's power 
as an orator, and on the whole his most famous production. 
As published in the author's works, it occupies seventy-two 
large, solidly printed octavo pages, yet it is said to have been 
listened to with unbroken interest. The closing appeal rises 
into magnificent imagery. Perhaps no other American para- 
graph has been so often quoted : 

"While the Union lasts we have high, exciting, gratify- 
ing prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. 
Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that 
in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise! God grant 
that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind! 
When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the 
sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and 
dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union ; on States 
dissevered, discordant, belligerent ; on a land rent with civil 
feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood. 

"Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather be- 
hold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and 
honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its 
arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a 
stripe erased or polluted, or a single star obscured, bearing 
for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as ' What is all 
this worth ? ' nor those other words of delusion and folly, 
' Liberty first and Union afterwards ;' but everywhere, spread 
all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample 
folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in 

71 




<?rr.si?!"'m^. 






THE HALL OF FAME 




every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, 
dear to every true American heart, Liberty and Union, now 
and forever, one and inseparable." 

Daniel Webster's presence and conversation at this time 
attracted the greatest interest everywhere. When in 1839, 
he visited England, Sidney Smith said he was a fraud, for 
no man could be as great as he looked. Lord Brougham 
said he was " a steam engine in breeches." Thomas Carlyle, 
after breakfasting in his company, wrote to an American 
friend : 

" He is a magnificent specimen. You might say to all 
the world — 'This is our Yankee Englishman ; such limbs we 
make in Yankee land.' 

" As a logic fencer, advocate or parliamentary Hercules, 
one would incline to back him at first sight against all the 
extant world. The tanned complexion; that amorphous, 
craglike face ; the dull black eyes under a precipice of brows, 
like dull anthracite furnaces needing only to be blown; the 
mastiff mouth, accurately closed ; I have not traced so much 
of silent Berserker rage that I remember of in any other 
man. I guess I should not like to be your nigger." 

Webster remained in the United States Senate from the 
time of his election, in 1827, until he resigned, in 1841, to 
become Secretary of State in the Cabinet of the first Presi- 
dent Harrison. On the 8th of May, 1843, ^e retired to 
private life, but in 1845 was again chosen Senator, remain- 
ing in the Senate until he was appointed Secretary of State 
by President Fillmore, July 23, 1850, a position which he 
held until his death. 

The end of his useful life came in the autumn of 1852, 
in the home he loved so w'ell, at Marshfield, Mass. He 

72 



^r^!% 



yjjiii' 





WEBSTER 



died on the morning of Sunday, the 24th of October, 1852. 
Many anecdotes are recorded of those last hours. It is 
fondly remembered at Marshfield, how he caused his favor- 
ite cattle to be driven by his window when too feeble to leave 
his room — and among the traditions of that dying chamber, 
are treasured his affection for his friend, Peter Harvey, and 
others with him, and the gentle consolation of some stanzas, 
which he had recited to him from that mournful requiem, 
the sad cadence of human life, the undying Elegy of the 
poet Gray. Conscious to the very end, he calmly watched 
the process of dissolution, and the last syllables he listened to 
were the sublime words of the Psalmist, "Though I walk 
through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no 
evil, for Thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they 
comfort me." His last words were, "I still live." By his 
own directions, his remains were entombed by the side of his 
first wife, and the children of his early days, in the old 
family burying ground on his estate at Marshfield. His 
grave bears his name, and the text selected by himself, 
" Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief." 





THE HALL OF FAME 



^^^ 




CHAPTER Vn. 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

" This constitution can end in despotism, as other fovms 
have done before it, only when the people shall become so 
corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of 
any other." Inscription on the tablet erected to the 
MEMORY oE Benjamin Frankein in the Haix of Fame. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, the philosopher pre-emment 
among the early American patriots, was born on Milk 
street, Boston, January 17, 1706. They had good 
sized families in those days or Benjamin never would have 
been born, for he had the honor to be the fifteenth child of his 
father's family of seventeen. His mother was the daughter of 
the old Nantucket poet, Peter Folger. The father was a soap- 
boiler and tallow-chandler, but in spite of his rather homely 
calling, we are assured that he had a taste for drawing and 
could do rather good work at it, as well as possessing skill 
in music. Benjamin put on his parents' tombstone in the 
old Granary Burying Ground, in Boston, these words, " He 
was a pious and prudent man ; she a discreet and virtuous 
woman." 

When Benjamin was eight years old he was sent to the 
public grammar school, where he remained for a year. It 
was then expected that he would receive a college education 

74 



fc 




THOMAS JEFFERSON, 91 Votes 
JOHN MARSHALL, 91 Votes 



ROBERT FULTON, 86 Votes 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 87 Votes (75) 



^ 



feT-"** 



^^£^^^ 



FRANKLIN 




m 



and become a preacher. But the pressure of that large 
family, like the pressure of a growing crowd of young birds 
in the nest, crowded him over the side of the nest into 
work. 

At ten years of age he was set to work in the tallow 
chandlery, but the flavor of it was not to his taste. As 
soon as he had learned to read, which was very early, he de- 
voured every book he could get his hands on, and so his 
father concluded to make a printer of him, and apprenticed 
iiim to an elder brother till he was twenty-one. 

Two or three years after the commencement of the ap- 
prenticeship, his brother set up the fourth newspaper pub- 
lished in America, the Nezv England Conrant. The press 
naturally took root in America. From the first, it has called 
forth the best talent in the country, and in Franklin's day 
was pretty much the only avenue open for miscellaneous 
literature. 

The young Franklin caught the mania of writing from 
the consequence it gave the contributors to the paper, and, 
knowing that a prophet has no honor in the guise of a 
printer's devil, slipped his anonymous offerings by night 
under the door and awaited the result. He had the satisfac- 
tion of hearing them read with becoming admiration, and 
probably the extraordinary luxury of setting them in type 
himself. 

The Courant was what would be called in modern slang 
a " spicy " paper — trenchant and satirical. It took some 
liberties with the powers that were — the church, state, and 
the " college " of those times — freedoms which would prob- 
ably pass for civilities, as such things go, now-a-days. The 
Assembly, in consequence, tyranically ousted James Frank- 

77 



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C©>\i 



THE HALL OF FAME 



Hn. This led to cancelling his brother's indentures, that the 
paper might appear with Benjamin's name. 

The relations of master and apprentice in the good 
old times allowed greater indulgence to the temper of the 
employer than we hope is permissible at present. Quarrels 
arose between the brothers ; one perhaps was saucy, the other 
passionate, and blows sometimes followed. Benjamin, tak- 
ing advantage of the broken indentures, resolved to leave; 
obstacles were then interposed ; he managed to evade them, 
raised money by the sale of his books, and embarking in a 
sloop, fled to New York. Finding no opportunity in that 
city, he pursued his way, with various adventures of con- 
siderable interest, as related in the Autobiography, to Phil- 
adelphia, making his first entrance into the place, in which 
he was afterwards to play so important a part, from a boat 
which he had assisted in rowing down the Delaware, one 
memorable Sunday morning, in October, 1723, at the age of 
seventeen. He was clad in his working dress, soiled by ex- 
posures in the way ; fatigued, hungry, and almost penniless. 

The incidents of that first day are as familiar as any- 
thing in Robinson Crusoe. Every boy has pictured the young- 
Benjamin Franklin walking along Market street, with the 
" three great puffy rolls," passing the door of his future 
wife, noticed not very favorably by that lady, making the 
circuit of the town, sharing those never-to-be-forgotten 
loaves with a mother and her child, till he finds shelter in 
sleep, in a silent meeting of the Quakers. 

He at once found employment, and w^as soon prosper- 
ing, but the next year was led away on a wild-goose chase 
to England, which, while it was a failure as a business enter- 
prise, was a source of education to the quick mind of young 

78 



FRANKLIN 



Benjamin Franklin. He returned to Pennsylvania in 1726, 
when he was twenty years old, and went to work at his trade 
as a printer. After a number of literary enterprises, the 
Pennsylvania Gazette became his property September 25, 
1729. In 1730 he was married to Deborah Read, who was 
his loving and honored wife for forty-four years. 

In 1732 Franklin began the publication of his famous 
Poor Richard's Almanac, which appeared annually for a 
quarter of a century. It was a great favorite with our fore- 
fathers, as it well might be in those days, with its stock of 
useful information, and the cheerful facetiousness and 
shrewd worldly-wise maxims of temperance, health, and 
good fortune, by its editor, Richard Saunders, as he called 
himself — for Franklin appeared on its title-page only as 
printer and publisher. 

The maxims at the close of the work, in 1758, were 
collected into a famous tract, The Way to Wealth, which, 
printed on broad sheets, and translated into various lan- 
guages, has been long since incorporated into the proverbial 
wisdom of the world. By some persons its lessons have been 
thought to give a rather avaricious turn to the industry of 
the country ; but there was nothing really in Franklin or his 
philosophy to encourage parsimony. 

Benevolence and true kindness were laws of his nature, 
and if he taught men to be prudent and economical, it was 
that they might be just and beneficent. We have not only 
such spurs to activity as "Diligence is the mother of good 
luck," and " One to-day is worth two to-morrows," but a 
charitable word for the unfortunate, and those who fall in 
the race. " It is hard," he says " for an empty sack to stand 
upright." 

79 



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THE HALL OF FAME 




Public duties now began to flow in upon Franklin apace. 
In 1736 he was chosen clerk of the General Assembly, which 
gave him some incidental advantages in securing the print- 
ing of the laws, and the following year was appointed Deputy 
Postmaster in Philadelphia. His hand is in everything use- 
ful which is taking its rise in Philadelphia. He is the Man 
of Ross in the place, setting on foot a building for White- 
field to preach in, instituting fire companies, editing and 
publishing his newspaper, printing books, issuing, in 1741, 
the General Magazine and Historical Chronicle, invent- 
ing his Franklin stove in 1742, drawing up a proposal for 
the establishment of an Academy in 1743, out of which 
grew the University of Pennsylvania; the next year project- 
ing and establishing the American Philosophical Society ; 
afterwards assisting in founding the Pennsylvania Hospital. 

The public business of the country is now to raise 
Franklin to a wider field of exertion than the city limits of 
Philadelphia. In 1753 he is appointed by the department in 
London, Postmaster-General for the Colonies. The follow- 
ing year he is sent by the Pennsylvania House of Assembly 
as a member to the Congress of Commissioners, meeting at 
Albany, to confer with the Chief of the Six Nations, on 
common means of defense. 

From his earliest boyhood. Benjamin Franklin had that 
curious inventive turn of mind which is always asking the 
reason for things, and ever seeking to make experiment 
with attempts to improve conditions. As he grew older 
these tendencies settled into serious philosophical studies, 
which now began to bear fruit in numerous experiments and 
inventions. His attention appears to have been first called to 
the subject of electricity on a visit to Boston, in 1746, when 



FRANKLIN 



he witnessed the experiments of Dr. Spence, who had lately 
come from Scotland. The arrival of a glass tube in Phila- 
delphia, sent by the ingenious Peter CoUinson, of London, 
w'ith directions for its use, also stimulated inquiry, which 
Franklin carried on to advantage with the important assist- 
ance of his friend Ebenezer Kinnersley. 

His first observations, including his discovery of posi- 
tive and negative electricity, were communicated in a letter 
to Collinson, dated July ii, 1747. In 1749, he suggests the 
use of pointed rods — the invention of the lightning-rod — to 
draw electricity harmlessly to the ground or water. His 
celebrated kite experiment, identifying lightning and elec- 
tricity, was made at Philadelphia in the summer of 1752. 

As his researches went on, the results were communi- 
cated, through his correspondent Collinson, to the Royal 
Society, but their publication at first fell into the hands of 
Cave, the celebrated publisher of the Gentleman's Magazine, 
by whom they were issued in quarto. Of the style and 
philosophical merit of these communications, which have a 
place in every history of the science, we may cite the gener- 
ous testimony of Sir Humphrey Davy. " A singular felicity 
of induction," he says, " guided all Franklin's researches, 
and by very small means he established very grand truths. 
The style and manner of his publication on electricity are 
almost as worthy of admiration as the doctrine it contains." 

The honor conferred upon Franklin for these communi- 
cations and discoveries, by the Royal Society, in making him 
a Fellow, in 1756, was, contrary to the regulations of that 
body, bestowed unsolicited when he was in America. 

A little later Franklin visited England, where he made 
many great friends and was honored as a philosopher. The 

81 





'r5/>-^ 



THE HALL OF FAME 




University of Oxford made him a Doctor of Laws. He re- 
turned to America in 1762, but two years later was returned 
to London as an agent for the Colonies. No more astute 
counsellor could have been forwarded to cope with the 
diplomacy of the Old World. Being called before Parlia- 
r^^^ ment, without special preparation, he answered fully and 
shrewdly all questions proposed. He remained in England 
ten years, seeking to avert the War of the Revolution. The 
great Lord Chatham heard him gladly, and agreed with him, 
but was powerless to avert the coming storm. At last, see- 
ing that it must soon break, Franklin returned to his native 
land. He landed in America the 5th of May, 1775, and heard 
on his arrival of the battle of Lexington. It was fought 
while he was on the Atlantic. He was elected immediately 
to the second Continental Congress, counseling with the 
wisest men of his time while he assisted in the military de- 
fense of his State as a member of its Committee of Safety. 
In Congress he drafted articles of Confederation, was ap- 
pointed Postmaster-General, visited the camp of Washington 
at Cambridge — think of the runaway apprentice of half a 
century before taking this glance at his native town — is 
sent to Canada to negotiate insurrection, and on that memor- 
able day of July, at the age of seventy, puts his neat, flow- 
ing signature to the Declaration of Independence. " We 
must be unanimous," said Hancock, on this occasion ; " there 
must be no pulling different ways ; we must all hang to- 
gether." " Yes," answered Franklin, " we must, indeed, 
hang together, or we will be pretty sure to hang separately." 
This Ulysses of many counsels is next at the head of a 
Convention at Philadelphia, framing a State Constitution, in 
which, with less wisdom than usual, he advocated a single 

82 










legislative assembly; anon we find him traveling to Staten 
Island, sleeping in the same bed with John Adams, and 
philosophically arguing that statesman to repose with a 
curtain dissertation on opening the window for ventilation, 
as the commissioners pursued their way to a fruitless inter- 
view with Lord Howe. A month later and he is on his way 
to Paris, a commissioner to negotiate a treaty and alliance 
with the French monarch. His residence at the capital, 
apart from the toilsome business of his American negotia- 
tions, which taxed all his resources and equanimity, has an 
air of genteel comedy and stage triumph. 

We may not here pause over the negotiations at Paris, 
which belong as well to others and altogether to the general 
page of history, but must hasten to the final settlement. 
Suffice it that in the most intricate perplexities, civil, naval 
and military, of embarrassed finance and threatened political 
actions, perplexed by Arthur Lee, supporting Jay at Madrid 
and Paul Jones on the ocean, smoothing, aiding, contriving 
and assisting by word and by pen, always sagacious, always 
to the point, whether commissioner or plenipotentiary, he 
steers the bark of his country to the desired haven. He 
signs with Jay the preliminary Treaty of Peace with Great 
Britain and its final ratification, September 3, 1783. Con- 
tinuing his duties for awhile, he finally, burdened with in- 
firmities, left Paris in July, 1785, passed a few days in Eng- 
land, and reached Philadelphia in September. A grateful 
nation, from the highest to the lowest, honored his return. 

America, too, had yet other duties in store for her rep- 
resentative son. He held for three years the Presidency of 
Pennsylvania under its old Constitution, and when, at the 
instigation of Hamilton and Madison, the chiefs of the 

83 




THE HALL OF FAME 
:3H 



*c»^ 



nation assembled, under the Presidency of Washington, to 
form the Constitution of the United States, Frankhn was 
there, counseHng and suggesting as ever, and pouring oil 
on the troubled waters of controversy. 

Benjamin Franklin lived through three generations of 
his countrymen. He was born in the old Puritan time, and 
had listened to the preaching of Cotton Mather. He saw 
the beginning and the ending of two great wars, reaching 
from Wolfe, who fell on the Heights of Abraham, to Wash- 
ington, who became the Father of his Country. It was his 
privilege and honor to have part also in that great era of 
laws and legislation which established the Republic upon its 
sure foundation. He did much also to inaugurate a new 
period in philosophy ; he was the herald of new principles 
and policies ; he did more than any other man in his day to 
encourage literature ; he left his name and influence in- 
effaceably on the two great cities of Boston and Philadel- 
phia. He had become one of his nation's immortals. In his 
declining years his daughter, Mrs. Bache, and his family of 
grandchildren, were with him in his home in Market street, 
Philadelphia. His homely wisdom and love of anecdote, kept 
him company to the last. Honored by all mankind, he 
quietly fell asleep April 17, 1790. 



rc: 



84 




CHAPTER VIII. 
ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

"I determined iirst to use the greatest number of troops 
practicable, second, to hammer continuously against the 
enemy, until, by mere attrition if in no other way, there 
should be nothing left to him but submission." Inscription 

ON THE TABLET ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF UlYSSES S. 

Grant in the Hall of Fame. 

ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT was born at Point 
Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, in April, 1822. 
His father was a tanner, a pursuit which did not at 
all please young Grant. From his earliest boyhood he liked 
to handle horses, and while still a small boy, did most of the 
work connected with the farm belonging to his father, near 
the town where they lived. As he grew older, he was very 
fond of the country sports and especially delighted in horse- 
manship. Indeed, he became such an adept at horseback 
riding that he could imitate successfully some of the most 
daring feats of the circus ring, which, once in a while, re- 
joiced the boys of the countryside. 

As he showed no disposition to become a tanner, his 
father, looking around for a profession for his boy, saw an 
opportunity to get him appointed to a cadetship at West 
Point. Young Grant did not hear of this with any great 



op 



i 




enthusiasm, as he feared he would not be able to pass the 
examination. His baptismal name was Hiram Ulysses 
Grant, but the member of Congress who gave him the ap- 
pointment to West Point got the name mixed, and wrote it 
Ulysses Simpson Grant, and so it got on to the rolls and 
remained forever after. 

Grant entered West Point in 1839, ^^ the age of seven- 
teen, and graduated in 1843, the twenty-first in a class of 
thirty-nine. He made no very great reputation while in the 
Academy as a student, though he displayed considerable 
taste for mathematics ; while his general abilities and moral 
qualities were undoubted. The skill in horsemanship which 
he carried with him, distinguished him in the exercises in the 
riding school. One of his biographers, Albert D. Richard- 
son, has recorded an anecdote of his proficiency in this 
soldierly accomplishment. " There was nothing," says he, 
"he could not ride. He commanded, sat, and jumped a 
horse with singular ease and grace ; was seen to the best ad- 
vantage when mounted and at full gallop; could perform 
more feats than any other member of his class, and was 
altogether one of the very best riders West Point has ever 
known. 

" The noted horse of that whole region was a powerful, 
long-legged sorrel, known as ' York.' Grant and his class- 
mate, Gouts, were the only cadets who rode him at all, and 
Gouts could not approach Grant. It was his delight to jump 
York over the fifth bar, about five feet from the ground ; and 
the best leap ever made at West Point, something more than 
six feet, is still marked there as Grant's upon York.' York's 
way was to approach the bar at a gentle gallop, crouch like 
a cat, and fly over with rarest grace. One would see his 

86 










xV 



fore feet high in the air, his heels rising as his fore feet fell, 
and then all four falling lightly together. It needed a firm 
seat, a steady hand, and a quick eye to keep upon the back of 
that flying steed. At the final examination, his chief achieve- 
ment was with his famous horse York. In presence of the 
Board of Visitors, he made the famous leap of six feet and 
three or four inches." 

Grant left West Point with the brevet appointment of 
second lieutenant in the Fourth Infantry, and presently 
joined his regiment at Jeiferson Barracks, St. Louis, Mo., 
where he became acquainted with and formed an attachment 
to the sister of one of his Academy classmates. Miss Julia 
Dent, the lady who subsequently became his wife. This was 
the period of meditated Texas annexation. Portions of the 
small national army were gradually being concentrated on 
the southern frontier. The regiment to which Grant was 
attached was pushed forward in the movement, tarrying a 
year at Fort Jessup, on Red River, when it was sent to 
Corpus Christi, Texas, forming a part of General Taylor's 
army of observation, Grant being now promoted full second 
lieutenant, and in the spring of 1846 reaching the Rio 
Grande. 

It was a challenge to the Mexican forces on the right 
bank of the river, which they were not long in accepting. 
The contest fairly began in May, with the battles of Palo 
Alto and Resaca de la Palma, in both of which actions Grant 
was actively engaged. He was also in the thick of the fight 
in the severe assault of Monterey, in September. Shortly 
after the arrival of General Scott at Vera Cruz, in the begin- 
ning of the following year, Grant joined that commander, 
his regiment with others having been withdrawn from the 

87 



La ay 



.^ 



THE HALL OF FAME 



forces of General Taylor, to take part in the expedition 
against the capital. He was with the army of Scott in the 
successive battles from Cerro Gordo, onward, which marked 
the victorious progress to the city of Mexico, ever active in 
the field and as quartermaster, and was breveted first lieuten- 
ant and captain, for gallant and meritorious conduct, at 
Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. 

The war being ended, Grant, on a visit to St. Louis, 
married his betrothed in August, 1848, and was subsequently 
stationed for two years with his regiment at Detroit, with 
a brief interval of service at Sackett's Harbor, discharging 
the duties of quartermaster. In 1852, his regiment was sent 
to the Pacific, and stationed in the vicinity of Portland, 
Oregon, where, in 1853, he was promoted to a full captaincy. 
He was then ordered with his company to Fort Humboldt, 
in Northern California. 

Tiring of the monotony of military life in time of peace, 
Grant resigned his commission in 1854. He now passed 
several years in farming operations with his wife's family 
in Missouri, and in 1859, became engaged with a friend in 
business at St. Louis as real estate agent, with the firm 
of Boggs & Grant. At this time he made an application to 
the authorities of the city for a local office. The character- 
istic letter addressed to the Hon. County Commissioners, in 
which he presented his claims, has been preserved by his 
biographers ; it reads as follows : 

Gentlemen : I beg leave to submit myself as an applicant for 
the office of County Engineer, should the office be rendered vacant, 
and at the same time to submit the names of a few citizens who 
have been kind enough to recommend me for the office. I have 
made no effort to get a large number of names, nor the names of 
persons with whom I am not personally acquainted. I enclose here- 



GRANT 



with also, a statement from Prof. J. J. Reynolds, who was a class- 
mate of mine at West Point, as to qualifications. 

Should your honorable body see proper to give me the appoint- 
ment, I pledge myself to give the office my entire attention, and 
shall hope to give general satisfaction. 

Very respectfully. 

Your obedient servant, 

U. S. Grant. 

This application, though backed by a goodly number of 
business friends, was rejected, his competitor for the office 
succeeding, it is said, through greater political influence, 
though, it must be admitted, there was but a feeble recog- 
nition at this time of the talents and character by which 
Grant subsequently became so famous. " There was no 
other special objection to him," says his biographer, Rich- 
ardson, " than his supposed democratic proclivities from his 
political antecedents. His ability as an engineer was ac- 
corded. He was not much known, though the commissioners 
had occasionally seen him about town, a trifle shabby in 
dress, with pantaloons tucked in his boots. They supposed 
him a good office man, but hardly equal to the high responsi- 
bility of keeping the roads in order. He might answer for 
a clerk, but in this county engineership, talent and efficiency 
were needed." 

A partial amend for this disappointment was made by a 
minor position in the Custom House at St. Louis, out of 
which he was thrown, after a few weeks possession, by the 
death of his superior, the collector. On the prospect of a 
vacancy in the County Engineership in i860, he sent in a 
second application to the commissioners, but the office was 
not vacated, and of course nothing came of it. In this ex- 
tremity of his fortunes, having a family to support, he re- 
moved to Galena, Illinois, where his father had established a 

89 







THE HALL OF FAME 




profitable leather business. In this store Grant was em- 
ployed at the very humble salary of eight hundred dollars. 
In this position he was found when the attack on Sumter, in 
the spring of 1861, summoned the country to arms for the 
preservation of the integrity of the Union. 

Grant was at first employed in a clerical capacity by 
Governor Yates, of Illinois, but after some two months of 
waiting, he was appointed Colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois 
Volunteers, and it was in command of this regiment that 
he began one of the most remarkable military careers in all 
history. 

At the close of the war, indeed, before its close. Con- 
gress revived the grade of Lieutenant-General, and conferred 
it upon General Grant, making him Commander-in-Chief of 
all the armies of the United States. 

One of the most picturesque scenes in American history 
was the final surrender by General Lee to General Grant, 
which took place at Appomattox Court House on the 9th of 
April, 1865. Grant's generous conduct at that time won the 
heart of the South, and did much, not only then but in the 
days to come, to hasten the re-uniting of the bonds of fellow- 
ship among the two sections of the country. 

Grant's great success as a general in terminating the 
war, with the good sense and ability, mingled firmness and 
moderation, which he had uniformly displayed as a leader of 
events, marked him out as the inevitable candidate for the 
Presidency of the party to whom had fallen the conduct of 
the war. The interval which elapsed saw him steadily en- 
gaged in Washington, occupied with his duties as Lieutenant- 
General, and for a short time during the suspension of 
Stanton, Acting Secretary of War. 

90 



-jS^^Z- 






/^ 




When the Republican National Convention met at Chi- 
cago, in May, 1868, Grant was unanimously nominated for 
the Presidency on the first ballot. In his letter of acceptance, 
after endorsing the resolutions of the Convention, he added, 
" If elected to the office of President of the United States, 
it will be my endeavor to administer all the laws in good 
faith, with economy, and with the view of giving peace, 
quiet, and protection everywhere. In times like the present, 
it is impossible, or at least eminently improper, to lay down a 
policy to be adhered to, right or wrong, through an adminis- 
tration of four years. New political issues not foreseen, 
are constantly arising; the views of the public on old ones 
are constantly changing, and a purely administrative office 
should always be left free to execute the will of the people. 
I always have respected that will, and always shall. 

" Peace, and universal prosperity — its sequence, with 
economy of administration, will lighten the burden of taxa- 
tion, while it constantly reduces the national debt. Let us 
have peace." 

At the election in November, Grant was chosen Presi- 
dent by the vote of twenty-six States; Mississippi, Texas, 
and Virginia, not voting. 

President Grant's inaugural address on assuming the 
Presidency was marked by a tone of moderation and defer- 
ence to the will of the people, as expressed in the Acts of 
Congress. His administration was in accord with their 
measures. Among the leading features of its domestic 
policy, was the gradual restoration to the South of its privi- 
leges, forfeited by the necessities of the war, and the reduc- 
tion of the national debt ; while its foreign policy secured the 
negotiation of the treaty of arbitration with England for the 

91 





settlement of claims, arising from the negligence or wrong- 
doing of that country in relation to certain questions of in- 
ternational law, during the Southern rebellion. When, in 
1872, at the approaching conclusion of his term of office, a 
new nomination was to be made for the Presidency, he was 
again chosen by the Convention of the Republican party as 
their candidate. The result of the election was equally de- 
cided with that following his first nomination. He received 
the vote of thirty-one States, with a popular majority, over 
Horace Greeley, of 762,991. 

After his second term as President of the United States, 
General Grant proceeded with his wife to make a tour of the 
world. It turned out to be one marvelous reception. No 
private citizen, such as General Grant then was, ever before 
received such an international greeting. In all the great 
courts of the world he was honored as a king, and wherever 
he went great crowds gathered to look upon his face and 
cheer him. On his return to the United States he was almost 
compelled by his friends to become for a third time a can- 
didate for the Presidency, but was defeated in the Conven- 
tion. 

Early in 1884, General Grant began to be troubled with 
the illness which proved his last. It was cancer of the 
tongue, and from the first there was no hope that he could be 
cured. His closing days were given to the writing of his 
Memoirs, by which he hoped to leave something that would 
furnish sufficient financial support for his wife and children, 
his fortune having been swept away through the dishonesty 
of men in whom he had trusted. His Memoirs proved not 
only to be a great literary but a great financial success. 
Facing the last enemy, the brave old soldier remained as un- 

92 



THE HALL OF FAME 




CHAPTER IX. 
JOHN MARSHALL 

" The Constitution, and the laws made in pursuance 
thereof, are supreme; they control the constitutions and the 
laws of the respective States and cannot be controlled by 
them." Inscription on ths tablet erected to the mem- 
ory oE John Marshall in the Hall oe Fame. 



J 



|OHN MARSHALL, the great jurist of the early epoch 
of American history was the eldest of fifteen children, 
and was born September 24, 1755, in Germantown, 
Virginia. His father, Thomas Marshall, was with Braddock, 
an officer in the Colonial service, and witnessed the great 
defeat of that ill-starred officer. 

When John Marshall was ten years old his father moved 
up into the more hilly section of the country under the Blue 
Ridge Mountains. His education was largely received from 
his father ; this was added to with short terms at neighbor- 
ing schools from time to time, and attendance for about a 
year at a school in Westmoreland County where George 
Washington had attended. One of young Marshall's school- 
mates was a certain James Monroe, who afterwards came to 
be President of the United States. 

When Marshall was about eighteen years old he began 
to study Blackstone, but it was soon laid aside, for the War 

94 













HENRY W. LONGFELLOW, 85 Votes 
JONATHAN EDWARDS 82 Votes 



WASHINGTON IRVING, 83 Votes 
SAMUEL F. B. MORSE, 82 Votes (95) 




i\ 



of the Revolution was coming on apace, and young Marshall 
had in him patriotic, fighting blood. Horace Binney has 
given us a graphic pen-picture of the personal appearance of 
the young soldier. It is drawn of him in May, 1775, at a 
time when, as a lieutenant, he is drilling a company of sol- 
diers. This is the way he is painted : 

"He was about six feet high, straight, and rather slen- 
der, of dark complexion, showing little, if any, rosy red, yet 
good health, the outline of a face nearly a circle, and within 
that, eyes dark to blackness, strong and penetrating, beam- 
ing with intelligence and good nature ; an upright fore- 
head, rather low, was terminated in a horizontal line by a 
mass of raven-black hair, of unusual thickness and strength. 
The features of the face were in harmony with this outline, 
and the temples fully developed. The result of this com- 
bination was interesting and very agreeable. The body and 
limbs indicated agility rather than strength, in which, how- 
ever, he was by no means deficient. He wore a purple or 
pale blue hunting-shirt, and trousers of the same material 
fringed with white. A round black hat, mounted with the 
buck's tail for a cockade, crowned the figure and the man. 
He went through the manual exercise by word and motion, 
deliberately pronounced and performed in the presence of the 
company before he required the men to imitate him ; and 
then proceeded to exercise them with the most perfect 
temper 

" After a few lessons the company were dismissed, and 
informed that if they wished to hear more about the war, and 
would form a circle about him, he would tell them what he 
understood about it. The circle was formed, and he ad- 
dressed the company for something like an hour. He then 

97 







THE HALL OF FAME 





challenged an acquaintance to a game of quoits, and they 
closed the day with foot-races and other athletic exercises, at 
which there was no betting," 

" This," adds Mr. Binney, " is a portrait, to which in 
simplicity, gayety of heart, and manliness of spirit, in every- 
thing but the symbols of the youthful soldier, and one or two 
of those lineaments which the hand of time, however gentle, 
changes and perhaps improves, he never lost his resem- 
blance." 

Marshall accompanied his father to the war as a lieuten- 
ant, and in a year or two became a captain. 

Young Marshall was at the first fighting in Virginia, in 
the fall of 1775, and afterwards served in New Jersey, Penn- 
sylvania and New York ; and returned to Virginia toward the 
close of the war. He was with Washington during the 
awful winter at Valley Forge, was at the battle of Brandy- 
wine, and took part in the actions at Germantown, Mon- 
mouth, Stony Point, and Paulus Hook. It is quite signifi- 
cant that the young officer, who had not yet been admitted 
to the Bar, was often chosen as Judge Advocate. During 
the winter at Valley Forge, his strong, robust body and 
great fund of cheerfulness and good humor made him 
a popular favorite with the soldiers. Josiah Quincy says he 
once heard Marshall's early life, and especially his athletic 
powers, described at a dinner of eminent Virginians. Quincy 
says: 

"It was said in them that he surpassed any man in the 
army; that when the soldiers were idle at their quarters, it 
was usual for the officers to engage in matches of quoits, or 
in jumping and racing ; that he would throw a quoit farther, 
and beat at a race any other ; that he was the only man who. 



98 



-i^^^=^T~M 



^Til^HMir'— '^ 




with a running jump, could clear a stick laid on the heads of 
two men as tall as himself. On one occasion he ran in his 
stocking feet with a comrade. His mother, in knitting his 
stockings, had the legs of blue yarn and the heels of white. 
This circumstance, combined with his uniform success in the 
race, led the soldiers, who were always present at these races, 
to give him the sobriquet of ' Silver-Heels,' the name by 
which he was generally known among them." 

In 1779 the Virginia troops were disbanded, and Mar- 
shall went to Virginia to await the action of the Legislature 
concerning the raising of new troops. While on this visit at 
Yorktown, he met a little Miss Ambler, then only fourteen 
years of age, who became his wife two years later. While 
he was waiting for the Legislature, he attended two courses 
of lectures at the college on law and natural philosophy. 
This was all the college education he ever had ; but later in 
life he received high honors from several colleges. 

John Marshall was licensed to practice law in the sum- 
mer of 1780, but he did not retire from the army till 1781. 
He then began to practice in Fauquier County when the 
courts were opened after Cornwallis surrendered. In tlie 
spring of 1782 he was elected to the House of Burgesses, 
and became a member of the Privy Council the same year. 
He was sent to the Assembly eight times, and in 1788 was 
elected to the Federal Convention of Virginia, and in 1799 
was elected to Congress. 

Marshall removed to Richmond in 1783, and made that 
his home for the rest of his life. It was the centre around 
which gathered the brightest lawyers in that part of the 
country, and Marshall soon came to be a leading man 
among them. 

99 




THE HALL OF FAME 




At first, he had brought from the army, and from his 
home on the frontier, simple and rustic ways which sur- 
prised some persons at Richmond, whose conception of great- 
ness was associated with very different models of dress and 
behavior. '' He was one morning strolling," we are told, 
" through the streets of Richmond, attired in a plain linen 
roundabout and shorts, with his hat under his arm, from 
which he was eating cherries, when he stopped in the porch 
of the Eagle Hotel, indulged in a little pleasantry with the 
landlord, and then passed on." A gentleman from the 
country was present, who had a case coming on before the 
Court of Appeals, and was referred by the landlord to Mar- 
shall as the best lawyer to employ. But " the careless, lan- 
guid air " of Marshall had so prejudiced the man that he 
refused to employ him. The clerk, when this client entered 
the court-room, also recommended Marshall, but the other 
would have none of him. A venerable-looking lawyer, with 
powdered wig and in black cloth, soon entered, and the 
gentleman engaged him. In the first case that came up, this 
man and Marshall spoke on opposite sides. The gentleman 
listened, saw his mistake, and secured Marshall at once ; 
frankly telling him the whole story, and adding that while 
he had come with one hundred dollars to pay his lawyer, he 
had but five dollars left. Marshall good-naturedly took this, 
and helped in the case. In the Virginia Federal Convention 
of 1788, at the age of thirty-three he is described, rising after 
Monroe had spoken, as " a tall young man, slovenly dressed 
in loose summer apparel. His manners, like those of 
Monroe, were in strange contrast with those of Edmund 
Randolph or of Grayson." 

In 1789 Marshall declined the office of District Attor- 






;- "-i;--. 





MARSHALL 



ney of the United States at Richmond, in 1795 that of At- 
torney-General of the United States, and in 1796 that of 
Minister to France, all of which were offered him by George 
Washington. In 1797 President Adams persuaded him to 
go with Pinckney and Gerry as envoy to France. On his re- 
turn, in 1798, he was received at Philadelphia with great 
demonstrations of respect, and with the most marvelous 
enthusiasm. 

Marshall was commissioned as Chief Justice of the 
United States, January 31, 1801, and held that honorable 
position for thirty-four years. Coming to his place so early 
in the history of jurisprudence under the Constitution of the 
Republic, both his opportunity and his responsibility were 
very great, and the ability and fidelity with which he pursued 
his onerous duties won him his royal place among America's 
immortals. 

Marshall remained until the close of his life a man of 
remarkable spirits and vigor. His youthful enthusiasm and 
delightful geniality which had marked him in youth re- 
mained with him in old age. Horace Binney says : " After 
doing my best one morning to overtake Chief Justice Mar- 
shall, in his quick march to the Capitol, when he was nearer 
to eighty than seventy, I asked him to what cause in particu- 
lar he attributed that strong and quick step, and he replied 
that he thought it was most due to his commission in the 
Army of the Revolution, in which he had been a regular 
foot practitioner for six years." 

Marshall was a famous player of quoits. Mr. G. W. 
Munford, writing of a Richmond quoit club says : 

" We have seen Mr. Marshall, in later times, when he 
was Chief Justice of the United States, on his hands and 

lOI 






THE HALL OF FAME 



knees, with a straw and a penknife, the blade of the knife 
stuck through the straw, holding it between the edge of the 
quoit and the hub; and when it was a very doubtful ques- 
tion, pinching or biting off the ends of the straw, until it 
would fit to a hair." 

James K. Paulding has written a most entertaining ac- 
count of a game of quoits in 1820, when Jarvis, the artist, 
was present, playing evidently on the same side with Chief 
Justice Marshall. Paulding writes: 

"I remember," he says, "in the course of the game, and 
when the parties were nearly at a tie, that some dispute arose 
as to the quoit nearest the meg. The Chief Justice was 
chosen umpire between the quoit belonging to Jarvis and that 
of Billy Haxall. The judge bent down on one knee, and 
with a straw essayed the decision of this important question, 
on which the fate of the game in a great measure depended. 
After nicely measuring and frequently biting off the end of 
the straw, ' Gentlemen,' said he, ' you will perceive this quoit 
would have it, but the rule of the game is to measure from 
the visible iron. Now that clod of dirt hides almost half an 
inch. But, then he has a right to the nearest part of the 
meg ; and here, as you will perceive, is a splinter, which be- 
longs to and is part of the meg, as much as the State of 
Virginia is a part of the Union. This is giving Mr. Haxall 
a great advantage; but, notwithstanding, in my opinion, 
Jarvis has it by at least the sixteenth part of an inch, and so 
I decide, like a just judge, in my own favor.' " 

Judge Story, speaking of the personal qualities of Mar- 
shall says : " Upon a first introduction he would be thought 
to be cold and reserved ; but he was neither the one nor the 
other. It wa= simply a habit of easy taciturnity, watching, 

102 





as it were, his own turn to follow the line of conversation, 
and not to presume to lead it. . . . Meet him in a stage- 
coach as a stranger, and travel with him a whole day, and 
you would only be struck with his readiness to administer to 
the accommodation of others, and his anxiety to appropriate 
least to himself. Be with him the unknown guest at an inn, 
and he seemed adjusted to the very scene, partaking of 
the warm welcome of its comforts, whenever found ; and 
if not found, resigning himself without complaint to its 
meanest arrangements. . . . He had great simplicity 
of character, manners, dress, and deportment, and yet 
with a natural dignity that suppressed impertinence and 
silenced rudeness. His simplicity . . . had an ex- 
quisite naivete, which charmed every one, and gave a sweet- 
ness to his familiar conversation approaching to fascination. 
The first impression of a stranger, upon his introduction to 
him, was generally that of disappointment. It seemed hardly 
credible that such simplicity should be the accompaniment of 
such acknowledged greatness. The consciousness of power 
was not there ; the air of office was not there ; there was no 
play of the lights or shades of rank, no study of effect in tone 
or bearing." 

Daniel Webster, in 1814, while he was still a member of 
Congress from New Hampshire, wrote home to his brother 
Ezekiel : " There is no man in the court that strikes me like 
Marshall. He is a plain man, looking very much like 
Colonel Adams, and about three inches taller. I have never 
seen a man of whose intellect I had a higher opinion." 

In 1 83 1 Marshall went to Philadelphia, in the autumn, to 
undergo the torture of the operation of lithotomy, before the 
days of ether. A Dr. Randall, writing of the occasion, says : 

103 



THE HALL OF FAME 



" It will be readily admitted that, in consequence of 
Judge Marshall's very advanced age, the hazard attending 
the operation, however skilfully performed, was considerably 
increased. I consider it but an act of justice due to the 
memory of that great and good man to state that, in my 
opinion, his recovery was in a large degree owing to his 
extraordinary self-possession, and to the calm and philo- 
sophical views which he took of his case, and the various 
circumstances attending it. 

" It fell to my lot to make the necessary preparations. 
In the discharge of this duty I visited him on the morning of 
the day fixed on for the operation, two hours previously to 
that at which it was to be performed. Upon entering his 
room I found him engaged in eating his breakfast. He 
received me with a pleasant smile upon his countenance, and 
said : ' Well, doctor, you find me taking breakfast, and I 
assure you I have had a good one. I thought it very probable 
that this might be my last chance, and therefore I determined 
to enjoy it and eat heartily.' I expressed the great pleasure 
which I felt at seeing him so cheerful, and said that I 
hoped all would soon be happily over. He replied to this 
that he did not feel the least anxiety or uneasiness respecting 
the operation or its results. He said that he had not the 
slightest desire to live, laboring under the sufferings to which 
he was then subjected ; that he was perfectly ready to take all 
the chances of an operation, and he knew there were many 
against him; and that if he could be relieved by it he was 
willing to live out his appointed time, but if not, would 
rather die than hold existence accompanied with the pain and 
misery which he then endured. 

" After he finished his breakfast I administered to him 
104 



»5fe' 



we* 



• •el 

«CsJ 

2j 







iV 



some medicine ; he then inquired at what hour the operation 
would be performed. I mentioned the hour of eleven. He 
said, * Very well, do you wish me now for any other purpose, 
or may I lie down and go to sleep ? ' I was a good deal sur- 
prised at this question, but told him that if he could sleep 
it would be very desirable. He immediately placed him- 
self upon the bed, and fell into a profound sleep, and con- 
tinued so until I was obliged to rouse him in order to 
undergo the operation. He exhibited the same fortitude, 
scarcely uttering a murmur, throughout the whole procedure, 
which, from the peculiar nature of his complaint, was neces- 
sarily tedious." 

On Christmas day of that same year his wife died. He 
had loved her most devotedly for more than fifty years. 
The day before she died, she hung about his neck a locket 
in which was a little wisp of her hair. He wore it always, 
day and night, and gave orders that it should be the last 
thing removed from his body after his death. 

After his recovery, in 1831, Marshall remained in good 
health until 1835, when he rapidly declined. He died in 
Philadelphia, July 6, 1835, and was buried by the side of his 
beloved wife in the Schokoe Hill Cemetery, in Richmond, 
Virginia. 







105 




il 



" We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men 
are created equal, that they are endozved by their creator 
with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Inscription on the 

TABLET ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OE ThOMAS JEFFERSON IN 

THE Hale of Fame. 

THOMAS JEFFERSON, the author of the Declaration 
of Independence, was born April 2, 1743. His father, 
Peter Jefiferson, was a man of superb physique, and 
was famous for being the strongest man in Virginia 
in his time. It is said of him that he could lift from 
the sides to an upright position two hogsheads of tobacco at 
once, each weighing a thousand pounds. He was also a man 
of eminent courage and wisdom, and of such conspicuous 
honesty, that he was the man generally chosen throughout 
the community as executor or trustee whenever there was 
need of such service. 

Peter Jefferson was a member of the House of Bur- 
gesses, and a rising man, but died in August, 1757, in his 
fiftieth year. 

Thomas Jefferson, at the death of his father, was only 
fourteen years of age. He was left, however, in very com- 

106 




\N^ 



JEFFERSON 



fortable circumstances and with excellent family connections. 
He grew to be a slender and sinewy young man, six feet 
two and a half inches tall, with sandy hair, and gray eyes. 
He was athletic, fond of shooting, and a skilful and daring 
horseman, even for a Virginian. He entered William and 
Mary College in 1760, at the age of seventeen. The college 
was at Williamsburg, then the capital of the colony, and his 
relations with the Randolphs made him free of the best 
houses. A Scotch doctor, William Small, was Professor of 
Mathematics and Philosophy. This man seems to have been 
a real genius for teaching, having that indescribable power 
which some men possess of being able to fire the mind of 
the pupil with a great zeal for learning. Jefferson after- 
wards said that it was the presence of this teacher in the 
University which fixed the destinies of his life. 

Jefferson was evidently a hard worker at college. He 
tells us that during his second collegiate year it was his habit 
to study fifteen hours a day, and for his only exercise ran, 
at twilight, a mile out of the city and back again. 

He was only two years at college, but his education was 
happily continued in his immediate entrance upon the study 
of the law with George Wythe, afterwards Chancellor of 
Virginia. His career at the Bar began in 1767, when he was 
only twenty-four years old. He was a well-trained, skilful 
lawyer, an adept in the casuistry of legal questions — more 
distinguished, however, for his ability in argument than for 
his power as an advocate. He was throughout his life little 
of an orator, and we shall find him hereafter, in scenes where 
eloquence was peculiarly felt, more powerful in the com- 
mittee room than in the debate. 

His first entrance on political life was at the age of 
109 



fnw 



THE HALL OF FAME 





twenty-six, in 1769, when he was sent to the House of 
Burgesses from the County of Albemarle, the entrance on a 
troublous time in the consideration of national grievances, 
and we find him engaged at once in preparing the resolutions 
and address to the Governor's message. The House, in reply 
to the recent declarations of Parliament, reasserted the 
American principles of taxation and petition, and other 
questions in jeopardy, and, in consequence, was promptly 
dissolved by Lord Botetourt. The members, the next day, 
George Washington among them, met at the Raleigh tavern, 
and pledged themselves to a non-importation agreement. 

The next year, on the conflagration of the house at 
Shadwell, where he had his home with his mother, he took 
up his residence at the adjacent " Monticello," also on his 
own paternal grounds, in a portion of the edifice so famous 
afterwards as the dwelling place of his maturer years. Un- 
happily, many of his early papers, his books and those of his 
father, were burnt in the destruction of his old home. In 
1772, on New Year's Day, he took a step further in domestic 
life, in marriage with Mrs. Martha Skelton, who had been 
left a widow in her nineteenth year. 

Thomas Jefferson was the most vigorous member of the 
House of Burgesses, which was dissolved again and again 
by the British Governor. 

The Congress of 1774 met and adopted mild forms of 
petition, but all the while committees of safety were being 
organized in different parts of the country, and Jefferson 
headed the list in his county. He was also in the Second 
Virginia Convention at Richmond, where he heard Patrick 
Henry's ardent appeal to the God of Battles — " I repeat it, 
sir, we must fight ! " 

no 



— ■ K 





JEFFERSON 
Mr 



The Assembly adopted the view so far as preparing 
means of defense, and that, the students of events in Massa- 
chusetts began to think, meant war. The delegates to the 
first Congress were elected to the second, and in case Peyton 
Randolph should be called to preside over the House of 
Burgesses, Thomas Jefferson was to be his successor at 
Philadelphia. The House met, Randolph was elected, and 
Jefferson departed to fill his place, bearing with him to 
Congress the spirited Resolutions of the Assembly, which he 
had written and driven through, in reply to the conciliatory 
propositions of Lord North. It was a characteristic intro- 
duction, immediately followed up by his appointment on the 
committee charged to prepare a declaration of the causes of 
taking up arms. Congress having just chosen Washington 
Commander-in-Chief of a national army. He was associated 
in this task with John Dickinson, to whose timidity and cau- 
tion, respected as they were by his fellow members, he de- 
ferred in the report, in which, however, a few ringing 
sentences of Jefferson are readily distinguishable, among 
them the famous watchwords of political struggle — " Our 
cause is just; our union is perfect." 

" With hearts," the document proceeds, " fortified with 
these animating affections, we most solemnly, before God 
and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of 
those powers which our beneficent Creator hath graciously 
bestowed upon us, the arms which we have been compelled 
by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every 
hazard, with unabated firmness and perseverance, employ for 
the preservation of our liberties, being with one mind re- 
solved to die freemen rather than live slaves." 

This was the era of masterly state papers ; and talent in 
III 




THE HALL OF FAME 



composition was in demand. The reputation of Jefferson 
in this line had preceded him, in the abihty of his " Sum- 
mary View," presented to the Virginia Convention, and was 
confirmed by his presence. Nearly a year passed — a year 
commencing with Lexington and Bunker Hill, and including 
the military scenes of Washington's command around Bos- 
ton, before Congress was fully ready to pronounce its final 
Declaration of Independence. When the time came, Jeffer- 
son was again a member of that body. The famous Resolu- 
tions of Independence, in accordance with previous instruc- 
tions from Virginia, were moved by Richard Henry Lee, on 
the 7th of June. They were debated in committee of the 
whole, and pending the deliberations, not to lose time, a 
special committee was appointed by ballot on the nth, to 
prepare a Declaration of Independence. Jefferson had the 
highest vote and stood at the head of the committee, with 
John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and 
Robert R. Livingston. The preparation of the instrument 
was entrusted to Jefferson. " The committee desired me to 
do it, it was accordingly done," says his Autobiography. 
The draft thus prepared, with a few verbal corrections from 
Franklin and Adams, was submitted to the House on the 
28th. 

On the 2d of July, it was taken up in debate, and 
earnestly battled for three days, when on the evening of the 
last — the ever-memorable Fourth of July — it was finally re- 
ported, agreed to, and signed by every member except Mr. 
Dickinson. 

Jefferson was elected to the next session of Congress; 
but, owing to the state of his family affairs, and desirous of 
taking part in the formative measures of government now 

112 




arising in Virginia, he was permitted to resign. He de- 
clined, also, immediately after, an appointment by Congress 
as fellow-minister to France with Dr. Franklin. In October, 
he took his seat in the Virginia House of Delegates, and 
commenced those efforts of reform with which his name will 
always be identified in his native State, and which did not 
end till its social condition was thoroughly revolutionized. 
^^Ij His first great blow was the introduction of a bill abol- 

ishing entails, which, with one subsequently brought in, cut- 
ting off the right of primogeniture, leveled the great landed 
aristocracy which had hitherto governed in the country. He 
was also, about the time of the passage of this act, created 
one of the committee for the general revision of the laws, his 
active associates being Edmund Pendleton and George 
Wythe. This vast work was not completed by the com- 
mittee till June, 1779, an interval of more than two years. 
Among the one hundred and sixteen new bills reported, per- 
haps the most important was one, the work of Jefferson, that 
for Establishing Religious Freedom. 

In 1779, Jefferson succeeded Patrick Henry as the 
Governor of Virginia. And in 1782 the great sunset of his 
life came to him through the death of his wife, " torn from 
him by death," to use the expressive language he placed on 
her simple monument. 

The illness of his wife had prevented his acceptance of 
an appointment in Europe, to negotiate terms of peace, im- 
mediately after the termination of his duties as governor. 
A similar office was now tendered him — the third proffer of 
the kind by Congress — and, looking upon it as a relief to his 
distracted mind as well as a duty to the State, he accepted it. 
Before, however, the preparations for his departure were 

113 




cJh-J 



l^<^ 



THE HALL OF FAME 



complete, arising from the difficulties then existing of cross- 
ing the ocean, intelligence was received of the progress of 
the peace negotiations, and the voyage was abandoned. He 
was then returned to Congress, taking his seat in November, 
1783, at Trenton, the day of the adjournment to Annapolis, 
where one of his first duties, the following month, was as 
chairman of the Committee which provided the arrange- 
ments for the reception of Washington on the resignation of 
his command. 

In May of the following year Congress appointed Jeffer- 
son, with Adams and Franklin, to act in Europe in accom- 
plishing negotiations of the greatest importance to the new 
government. He remained abroad, accompanied by his 
daughters, until 1789, when he obtained a leave of absence 
that he might come home to attend to his private affairs. 
On reaching home he found a letter from President Wash- 
ington, tendering him the office of Secretary of State. The 
proposition was received with manifest reluctance, but with 
a candid reference to the will of the President. The latter 
smoothed the way, by representing the duties of the office as 
less laborious than had been conceived, and it was accepted. 
At the end of March, 1790, he joined the other members of 
the administration at New York. Then began that separa- 
tion in politics, which, gradually rising to the dignity of party 
organization, becam.e known as Federalism and Republican- 
ism. Whatever opinions Jefferson might entertain of men 
or measures, on questions of practical conduct he regarded 
only the honor and welfare of his country. He retired at the 
end of 1793, with the friendship and respect of Washington 
unbroken. 

Jefferson did not reappear in public life until 1797, 
114 



w 






aj"^-- 



JEFFERSON 



when he was elected Vice-President in connection with the 
Presidency of John Adams. At the next election he was 
elevated to the Presidency. The votes stood seventy-three 
alike for himself and Aaron Burr, and sixty-five and sixty- 
four, respectively, for Mr. Adams and Mr. Pinckney. As the 
Presidency was then given to the one who had the highest 
vote, and the Vice-Presidency to the one next below him, 
neither being named for the offices, this equality threw the 
election into the House of Representatives. A close contest 
then ensued between Jefferson and Burr for the Presidency, 
which was protracted for six days and thirty-six ballotings, 
when the former was chosen by ten out of the sixteen votes 
of the States. 

Jefferson was renominated, and especially because of 
the brilliant acts of the navy in the Mediterranean, in con- 
flict with the Barbary powers, which served to swell the 
triumphs of the Administration; he was, in spite of a most 
vigorous opposition, borne into office by a great victory of 
one hundred and sixty-two votes in the Electoral College to 
fourteen given to Pinckney. 

The main events of this second administration were the 
trial of Burr for his alleged western conspiracy, in which 
the President took a deep interest in the prosecution, and the 
measures adopted against the naval aggressions of England, 
which culminated in the famous " Embargo," by which the 
foreign trade of the country was annihilated at a blow, that 
Great Britain might be reached in her commercial interests. 
It, of course, called down a storm of opposition from the 
remnants of Federalism in the commercial States, which 
ended in its repeal early in 1809, after it had been in opera- 
tion something more than a year. 

115 




THE HALL OF FAME 



Jefferson was now sixty-six and had had a most remark- 
able career. But he Hved yet seventeen years, during which 
time he came to be known as, "The sage of Monticello." 
During these years asperities died out, and a new generation 
learned to reverence him as the father of the States. His 
fondness for riding blooded horses was kept up almost to the 
last, and his cheerful, courageous outlook upon life endured 
to the end. During his last days he wrote with all the old 
optimism and strength these words : 

*' All eyes are opened or opening to the rights of man. 
The general spread of the light of science has already laid 
open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of man- 
kind have not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a 
favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legiti- 
mately, by the grace of God." This was the last echo of the 
fire which was wont to inspire senates, which had breathed in 
the early councils of liberty, which had kept pace with the 
progress of the nation to a third generation. A few days 
after, at noon of the day which had given the Republic 
birth, to the music of his own brave words, exactly fifty 
years after the event; in full consciousness of his ebbing 
moments; with tranquillity and equanimity, passed from 
earth the soul of Thomas Jefferson. 

His old comrade, John Adams, lingered at Braintree a 
few hours longer, thinking of his friend in his dying mo- 
ments, as he uttered his last words : " Thomas Jefferson still 
survives." They were too late for fact, but they have been 
accepted for prophecy, and in this spirit they are inscribed as 
the motto to the latest memorial of him of whom they were 
spoken. Thus, on the 4th of July, 1826, passed away the 
two great apostles of American liberty. 

116 



mwl 




DAVID G. FARRAGUT, 79 Votes 
GEORGE PEABODY, 74 Votes 



HENRY CLAY, 74 Votes 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, 73 Votes (118) 



CHAPTER XL 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

" The day is always his who tvorks in it zvith serenity 
and great aims. The unstable estimates of men croivd to 
him whose mind is filled with the truth as the heaped up 
waves of the Atlantic follow the moon" Inscription on 

THK TABLET ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OE RaLPH WalDO 

Emerson in the Hall oe Fame. 




EMERSON 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON was born in the parson- 
age of First Church, on Sumner street, in Boston, 
^ May 25, 1803. He was the second of five sons. His 
father, the Rev. William Emerson was the pastor of First 
Church. F. B, Sanborn says that at the time of Emerson's 
birth, the parsonage had a yard with quite an orchard in it. 
It was separated by a brick wall from another garden in 
which pears grew, a fact a boy is likely to remember. 
Master Ralph Waldo used to sit on this wall. But Sanborn 
is quite sure that he never got off on the wrong side, unless 
politely asked to do so. 

After the Rev. William Emerson's death, Mrs. Emerson 
removed to a house in Beacon street, where the Athenseum 
building now stands, and kept boarders, among them Lemuel 
Shaw, who afterwards became Chief Justice of Massachu- 
setts. Beacon street was hardly as conventional then as it is 

119 





'MP!-S 



m 



now, for the Emerson boarding house kept a cow, and 
Ralph Waldo used to drive it to pasture in the morning and 
go after it in the evening. 

The future transcendental philosopher entered the 
public grammar school at the age of eight years, and soon 
afterwards the Latin school. At eleven he was turning 
Virgil into English with great success. He was fond of 
Greek and history, and much given to the writing of verses. 

Ralph Waldo entered Harvard in 1817, and does not 
seem to have made any great impression there, though his 
performance was always eminently respectable. Mr. John 
Lowell Gardner, one of his classmates, writes of him : " I 
have no recollection of his relative rank as a scholar, but it 
was undoubtedly high, though not the highest. He was 
never idle or a lounger, nor did he ever engage in frivolous 
pursuits. I should say that his conduct was absolutely fault- 
less. It was impossible that there should be any feeling about 
him but of regard and affection. He had then the same 
manner and courtly hesitation in addressing you that you 
have known in him since. Still, he was not prominent in the 
class, and, but for what all the world has since known of him, 
his would not have been a conspicuous figure to his class- 
mates in recalling college days." 

After leaving college, and while pursuing his studies for 
the ministry, young Emerson employed a part of his time at 
school teaching. In the year 1825 he taught school in 
Chelmsford, Massachusetts. It was an old-fashioned 
country school. One of the boys, writing about it in after 
years, says the young teacher was very grave, quiet, and im- 
pressive in appearance. There was also something engaging 
and charming about him. He was never harsh or severe; 

120 




■-^?%i 




EMERSON 



5^ 



i^ 



never under any circumstances showed excitement or anger; 
never punished except with words, and yet held a masterful 
sway over the boys. His old pupil recalls the stately impres- 
sive way in which, for some minor offense a little boy had 
committed, Emerson turned on him, saying only these two 
words : " Oh sad ! " That was enough, for he had the 
remarkable faculty of making the boys love him, and to know 
they had really grieved him was sore punishment. 

Emerson began studying for the ministry under Dr. 
Channing, attending some of the lectures in the Divinity 
School at Cambridge, though not enrolled as one of his 
regular students. In 1826, after three years' study, he was 
" approbated to preach " by the Middlesex Association of 
Ministers. His health obliged him to seek a Southern cli- 
mate, and he went the following winter to South Carolina 
and Florida. During this trip he preached several times in 
Charleston and in other cities. On his return from the South 
he preached in New Bedford, in Northampton, in Concord, 
and in Boston. All the accounts of these early sermons bear 
witness that he was an attractive preacher. 

On the nth of March, 1829, Emerson was ordained 
as Colleague with the Rev. Henry Ware, Minister of the 
Second Church in Boston. In September of the same year 
he was married to Miss Ellen Louisa Tucker. His colleague 
soon withdrew, and he was left in full charge of the church. 
He remained in the pulpit less than three years. His wife 
died in February, 1832, and during that year he came to have 
conscientious scruples against administering the ordinance 
of the Lord's Supper. On the 9th of September of that 
year he preached a sermon on that subject, which is his only 
printed sermon. As his people did not agree with him, he 

121 





THE HALL OF FAME 



withdrew from them in perfect good humor and friendly 
spirit. The beautiful spirit of the man shows itself in the 
concluding words of his sermon : 

" Having said this, I have said all. I have no hostility 
to this institution ; I am only stating my want of sympathy 
with it. Neither should I ever have obtruded this opinion 
upon other people, had I not been called by my office to ad- 
minister it. That is the end of my opposition, that I am not 
interested in it. I am content that it stand to the end of the 
world if it please men and please heaven, and I shall rejoice 
in all good it produces." 

And thus it was, that with the kindest feelings on both 
sides, Emerson resigned the pulpit of the Second Church, and 
found himself obliged to begin a new career. 

In the year 1833 Emerson visited Europe for the first 
time, visiting in his short tour Sicily, Italy, France, and 
England. And on his return he became a resident of Con- 
cord, Massachusetts, which he made his home for the rest 
of his life. Oliver Wendell Holmes has given a very pretty 
picture of Concord, which is so bound up with all thoughts 
of Emerson. He says : ''Concord might sit for its portrait 
as an ideal New England town. If wanting in the variety of 
surface which many other towns can boast of, it has, at least, 
a vision of the distant summits of Monadnock and Wachu- 
sett. It has fine old woods, and noble elms to give dignity to 
its open spaces. Beautiful ponds, as they modestly call 
themselves, — one of which, Walden, is as well known in our 
literature as Windermere in that of Old England, — lie 
quietly in their clean basins. And through the green 
meadows runs, or rather lounges, a gentle, unsalted stream, 
like an English river, licking its grassy margin with a sort 

122 



EMERSON 



of bovine placidity and contentment. This is the Musketa- 
quid, or Meadow River, which, after being joined by the 
more restless Assabet, still keeps its temper and flows peace- 
fully along by and through other towns, to lose itself in the 
broad Merrimac. The names of these rivers tell us that 
Concord has an Indian history, and there is evidence that it 
was a favorite residence of the race which preceded our 
own. The native tribes knew as well as the white settlers 
where were pleasant streams and sweet springs, where corn 
grew tall in the meadows, and fish bred fast in the unpolluted 
waters." 

Soon after making his home at Concord, Emerson began 
to appear before the public as a lecturer. His first subjects 
were " Water," and the " Relation of Man to the Globe." 
This is rather surprising, seeing that he never claimed to be 
a physical scientist, but were probably chosen as of a popular 
character for the purpose of making them entertaining, and 
thus serving as an introduction to the public. These lectures 
were never published. After getting his start on the plat- 
form he lectured during the same year on Michael Angelo, 
Milton, Luther, George Fox, and Edmund Burke. The first 
two of these lectures were printed in the North American 
Review in 1837 ^"^ 1838, but are not included in his works. 
He closed the lecture on Michael Angelo with this sentence : 
" He was not a citizen of any country ; he belonged to the 
human race; he was a brother and a friend to all who 
acknowledged the beauty that beams in universal nature, and 
who seek by labor and self-denial to approach its source in 
perfect goodness." 

Emerson was married a second time, in September, 
1835, to Miss Lydia Jackson, of Plymouth, Massachusetts. 

123 



THE HALL OF FAME 






After settling in Concord, Emerson delivered a course 
of lectures in Boston during several successive winters ; in 
1835, ^^n lectures on English Literature; in 1836, twelve 
lectures on Philosophy and History ; and in 1837, ^^^ 
lectures on Human Culture. Until the autumn of 1838 he 
preached twice on Sundays to the Church at East Lexington, 
which desired him to become its pastor. One of his biog- 
raphers says that when a lady of the society was asked why 
they did not choose a friend of Emerson's whom he had urged 
them to invite to their pulpit, she replied : " We are a very 
simple people, and can understand no one but Mr. Emerson." 
Emerson replied to their invitation, "My pulpit is the lyceum 
platform." 

Emerson's first book was published in Boston in 1836. 
It was a little volume of less than a hundred small pages, 
entitled Nature, and was published anonymously. But the 
unmistakable style, even in that early day, betrayed it, 
and it was at once attributed to its real author. His oration 
entitled The American Scholar, was his next publication. 
From this time on, striking orations and lectures and essays 
followed each other in more rapid profusion. 

In the year 1866 Emerson reached the age which has 
been sometimes spoken of as the "grand climacteric." In that 
year Harvard made him a Master of Laws. It was during 
that year, being away from home on one of his last lecturing 
trips, he met his son. Dr. Edward Waldo Emerson, at the 
Brevoort House, in New York. He there read to his son the 
poem entitled, " Terminus." The son saw that his father 
felt that he was growing old. It is one of Emerson's best, 
and taken under the circumstances of its writing, is a very 
interesting and sublime production. Here is the poem: 

124 






EMERSON 



" It is time to be old, 
To take in sail : — 
The god of bounds, 
Who sets to seas a shore. 
Came to me in his fatal rounds. 
And said : ' No more ! 
No farther shoot 

Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root. 
Fancy departs : no more invent ; 
Contract thy firmament 
To compass of a tent. 
There's not enough for this and that, 
Make thy option which of two ; 
Economize the failing river, 
Not the less revere the Giver, 
Leave the many and hold the few, 
Timely wise accept the terms. 
Soften the fall with wary foot; 
A little while 
Still plan and smile. 
And, — fault of novel germs, — 
Mature the unfallen fruit. 
Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires, 
Bad husbands of their fires, 
Who, when they gave thee breath, 
Failed to bequeath 
The needful sinew stark as once, 
The Baresark marrow to thy bones, 
But left a legacy of ebbing veins, 
Inconstant heat and nerveless reins, — 
Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb, 
125 



THE HALL OF FAME '^ 



Amid the gladiators, halt and numb.' 

As the bird trims her to the gale 

I trim myself to the storm of time, 

I man the rudder, reef the sail, 

Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime ; 

* Lowly faithful, banish fear 

Right onward drive unharmed ; 

The port, well worth the cruise, is near, 

And every wave is charmed.' " 

During three successive years, 1868, 1869, and 1870, 
Emerson delivered a series of lectures at Harvard Uni- 
versity on the " Natural History of the Intellect." These 
have never been published. 

Emerson's life at Concord was very simple. His most 
reckless self-indulgence seems to have been in the eating of 
pie. He was all his life very fond of pie. Professor Thayer 
tells how he once visited him and at breakfast they had, 
among other things, pie. This article at breakfast was one 
of Emerson's weaknesses. A pie stood before him on this 
occasion. He offered to help somebody from it, who de- 
clined ; and then one or two others, who also declined ; and 
then he turned to Mr. Thayer, and he too declined. " But, 
Mr. Thayer ! " Emerson remonstrated with humorous 
emphasis, thrusting the knife under a piece of pie and putting 
the entire weight of his character into his manner, " but, Mr. 
Thayer, what is pie for ? " 

Emerson's personal appearance was that of a typical 
scholar. He was tall and slender, with the complexion 
which tells of the library. He was six feet tall in his 
younger days, though he no doubt shrank a little toward the 

126 



EMERSON 



last. He was very light for such height. On his trip to 
California, late in life, he got off at Cheyenne to be weighed. 
When he came back on the train he asked Professor Thayer, 
who was his fellow traveler, to guess at his weight. Thayer 
guessed a hundred and forty pounds. He replied, " Yes, yes, 
a hundred and forty and a half! That half I prize; it is 
an index of better things ! " Dr. Holmes gives this picture 
of him, as he stood before an audience : 

" His shoulders sloped so much as to be commented 
upon for this peculiarity by Mr. Gilfillan, and like * Ammon's 
great son,' he carried one shoulder a little higher than the 
other. His face was thin, his nose somewhat accipitrine, 
casting a broad shadow ; his mouth rather wide, well formed 
and well closed, carrying a question and an assertion in its 
finely finished curves ; the lower lip a little prominent, the 
chin shapely and firm, as becomes the corner-stone of the 
countenance. His expression was calm, sedate, kindly, with 
that look of refinement, centering about the lips, which is 
rarely found in the male New Englander, unless the family 
features have been for two or three cultivated generations 
the battlefield and the playground of varied thoughts and 
complex emotions as well as the sensuous and nutritive port 
of entry. His whole look was irradiated by an ever active 
inquiring intelligence. His manner was noble and gra- 
cious." 

The last years of Emerson's beautiful and fruitful life 
were shadowed by the slow decay of his great mental powers, 
but watched over by those who loved him, and surrounded 
by a generation grateful and admiring, he quietly sank to his 
rest, in 1882, sixteen years after he had written the poem 
which suggested his recognition of the coming old age. 

127 






"To direct the genius and resources of our country to 
useful improvements to the sciences, the arts, education, 
the amendment of the public mind and morals in such pur- 
suits lie real honor and the nation's glory." Inscription 
ON the; tablet e;recte;d to the memory of Robert Fulton 
IN THE Hall oe Fame. 

|~>OBERT FULTON, whose inventions gave birth to a 
|\ new era in transportation facilities, and who thus 
became a great servant to mankind, was born at a 
town called Little Britain, but now called Fulton, Lancaster 
County, Pennsylvania, in the year 1765. His father died 
while he was very young, and he was largely self-educated. 
He did, however, attend school for a little while. 

There is a story told of the boy's intercourse with his 
Quaker schoolmaster, Caleb Johnson, which is quite signi- 
ficant considering his after career. Mrs. Fulton had asked 
the old Quaker how Robert was getting along at school. 
The disgusted old pedagogue replied, " I have used my best 
endeavors to fasten his attention upon these studies, but 
Robert pertinaciously declares his head to be so full of 
original notions that there is no vacant chamber to store away 
the contents of any dusty books." 

128 



mm^^ 



FULTON 



At a very early age, young Fulton gave evidence of the 
original and inventive quality of his mind. By the time he 
was fourteen years of age, he was well known in all the 
workshops of the town. He contrived, for his companions, 
a paddle-wheel, worked by a crank, for an old flat-bottomed 
fishing boat, in order to save the labor of polling it about on 
the Conestoga River. During the Revolutionary War, which 
was going on about this time, he got the nickname of 
^ Quicksilver Bob," among the workmen at the smithery 
where the government amis were made, because of his ready 
calculations of balls and distances, and his greed for quick- 
silver for use in his private experiments. He also early 
developed a talent for drawing, which he displayed in cari- 
caturing the Whig and Tory boys in their fights about town. 
At the age of seventeen, he found his way to Philadelphia, 
with the intention of supporting himself as a painter, where, 
considering his advantages, he was marvelously successful. 
He not only made money, but he saved it, and at the age 
of twenty-one, he returned home, established his mother on 
a farm of eighty-four acres, and set out for Europe, 

About the time of coming to his majority, Fulton's 
health was threatened seriously, and his reputation as an 
artist being somewhat established, he decided to go to Eng- 
land, hoping for improved health, and, at the same time, to 
receive aid and counsel in his profession from Benjamin 
West, the great American artist, whose boyhood had been 
spent in the same part of Pennsylvania from which Fulton 
had emerged, and with whose family there had been an old 
acquaintance. 

West received Fulton with friendly hospitality, and 
made him a sharer of his home and artistic resources for a 

129 






THE HALL OF FAME 




number of years. At the end of this dehghtful fellowship, 
Fulton pursued his course about England, with the design 
of studying the masterpieces of art to be found in the rural 
mansions of the nobility. He was for a time at Powderham 
Castle, the Seat of the Courtneys, in Devonshire, engaged in 
copying the works of the masters on its walls. He resided 
in this princely abode, under the protection of the steward, a 
man of consequence on the estate. It was while he was in 
the neighborhood of Exeter that he made the acquaintance 
of the Earl of Bridgewater, the famous parent of the canal 
system in England. By his advice and example and the 
kindred encouragement of Lord Stanhope, with whom he 
was intimate, it would appear that Fulton was led to adopt 
the profession of a civil engineer, in which, and not as a 
painter, he was destined to become so well known to the 
world. 

At this time, in 1793, he addressed a letter to Lord 
Stanhope on the subject of some experiments in the applica- 
tion of steam to navigation, containing the views which he 
afterwards put in practice on the Hudson, and had this been 
heeded by the noble earl, " the important invention of a suc- 
cessful steamboat," says Professor Renwick, *' might have 
been given to the world ten years earlier than its actual in- 
troduction." 

Fulton now took up his residence at Birmingham, then 
illuminated by the genius of James Watt, to whom he was 
naturally attracted, and with whose labors on the steam 
engine he became acquainted. He employed himself particu- 
larly in the study of canals, and took out a patent for a 
double inclined plane of his invention for overcoming in- 
equalities of height, the principle of which was exhibited in 

130 



S%T-^ 



e^ 



<«*u. 



FULTON 



'!W 



the treatise on the improvement of canal navigation which he 
published in London in 1796, with numerous well-executed 
plates from designs by his own hand. A copy of this work 
was sent by the author to President Washington, with the 
intention of bringing its theories into practical use in Amer- 
ica. Another was forwarded with a letter to Governor 
Mifflin, of Pennsylvania, urging, with numerous calcula- 
tions, the introduction of a canal system into that State, " as 
a great national question." 

Fulton also patented in England a mill for sawing 
marble, for which he received the thanks of the British 
Society for the Promotion of Arts and Commerce, and an 
honorary medal; also machines for spinning flax, making 
ropes, and an earth-excavator for digging canals. 

In 1797, he passed over to Paris, with the design of 
bringing to the notice of the French Government his inven- 
tion of the torpedo, a device for the blowing up of enemies' 
vessels by attaching beneath the water a copper canister of 
gunpowder, to be discharged by a gunlock and clockwork. 
He found his ingenious countryman, Joel Barlow, in the 
French capital, a kindred spirit with whom he formed an 
acquaintance, which, as in the case of West, was intimately 
continued for years under the same roof, Fulton availed 
himself of this opportunity to study the French and German 
and Italian languages, and improve his acquaintance with the 
higher branches of mechanical science. Among other em- 
ployments, he projected, it is said, two buildings for the 
exhibition of panoramas, the success of which owed much to 
his assistance. On the arrival, in 1801, of Chancellor Liv- 
ingston in France, as minister, he found a ready assistant in 
Fulton to the schemes of steam navigation in which he had 

131 



THE HALL OF FAME 



been already engaged on the Hudson. Experiments were 
set on foot in the two following years, which resulted in 
sufficient success in the movement of a boat of considerable 
size, propelled by steam on the Seine, to justify the prosecu- 
tion of the work in America. An engine of peculiar con- 
struction, planned by Fulton, was ordered in England from 
Watt and Boulton, at Birmingham. The preparation of this 
machinery was in part superintended by Fulton himself. 

The New York Legislature had given Livingston and 
Fulton the exclusive right of navigating the Hudson River. 
To supply funds for the completion of his vessel, Fulton 
offered one third of his patent right for sale; but no one 
was found with faith enough in the enterprise to induce him 
to come forward as the purchaser. The boat was, however, 
at last launched on the East River, and, to the great excite- 
ment of the public, was actually moved by her own ma- 
chinery to her landing place on the Hudson. 

The Clermont, a name given to the boat, from the 
country home of Chancellor Livingston on the Hudson, was 
next advertised to sail for Albany ; and accordingly took her 
departure on Monday afternoon, September 14, 1807, from 
a dock in the upper part of the city on the North River. In 
thirty-two hours she made her destination, a distance of one 
hundred and fifty miles. On her return to New York, a few 
days after, the voyage was made in thirty hours. A passage 
from the letter of Fulton to his friend, Joel Barlow, affords 
an interesting memorial of the occasion. 

After stating that the voyage had turned out rather 
more favorably than he had calculated, and remarking that, 
with a light breeze against him, he had, solely by the aid of 
the engine, " overtaken many sloops and schooners beating 

132 



FULTON 



\orf> 



to windward, and parted with them as if they had been at 
anchor," he adds, " The power of propelHng boats by steam 
is now fully proved. The morning I left New York, there 
were not perhaps thirty persons in the city who believed that 
the boat would ever move one mile an hour, or be of the least 
utility ; and while we were putting off from the wharf, which 
was crowded with spectators, I heard a number of sarcastic 
remarks. This is the way in which ignorant men compliment 
what they call philosophers and projectors. Having em- 
ployed much time, money and zeal in accomplishing this 
work, it gives me, as it will you, great pleasure to see it fully 
answer my expectations. It will give a cheap and quick con- 
veyance to the merchandise on the Mississippi, Missouri and 
other great rivers, which are now laying open their treasures 
to the enterprise of our countrymen ; and although the pros- 
pect of personal emolument has been some inducement to 
me, I feel infinitely more pleasure in reflecting on the im- 
mense advantage my country will derive from the in- 
vention." 

We find Fulton thus alluding to the navigation of the 
Mississippi. It was the original intention in the model of 
the Clermont, which was especially adapted for shallow 
waters. Indeed, up to this time, as remarked by Professor 
Renwick, " although the exclusive grant had been sought 
and obtained from the State of New York, it does not appear 
that either Fulton or his associate had been fully aware of 
the vast opening which the navigation of the Hudson pre- 
sented for the use of steam." The demand for travel soon 
outran the narrow accommodations of the Clermont, now 
put upon her regular trips upon the river ; another vessel was 
built, larger and of finer appointments; punctuality was es- 

^33 





tablished, and the brilliant steamboat service of the Hudson 
fairly commenced. 

After a review of the pretensions of all claimants, the 
honor appears fairly due to Fulton, of the first practical ap- 
plication of steam, worthy the mention, to navigation. There 
had, indeed, been earlier attempts, both in this country and 
abroad ; but, as shown in the concise yet comprehensive sum- 
mary of Professor Renwick, they could be of but little im- 
portance before James Watt, in 1786, completed the struc- 
ture of the double-acting condensing engine. After this 
invention became known, the chief rival claimant is Patrick 
Miller, of Dalswinton, who does appear to have thought 
seriously of the thing in 1787, and employed the engineer 
Symington to complete a model for him in 1791. 

" If we may credit the evidence which has been ad- 
duced," says Renwick, " the experiment was as successful as 
the first attempts of Fulton ; but it did not give to the in- 
ventor that degree of confidence which was necessary to 
induce him to embark his fortune in the enterprise." 

Symington's subsequent attempt, in 1801, was but a 
renewal of the idea and plan of Miller. Fulton's first letter 
on the subject to Earl Stanhope, it will be remembered, was 
in 1793, and his practical experiments in France began in 
1802. In the history of inventions, it is not uncommon to 
find in this way claimants starting up after the fact is estab- 
lished ; men of half ideas and immature efforts ; intelligent 
dreamers, perhaps, but wanting confidence or ability to put 
their visions into act. It is emphatically the man who ac- 
complishes, who makes a living reality of the immature pro- 
ject, who is entitled to the credit. The world thus pays a 
respect to Franklin for his discoveries in electricity, which 

134 



S^ 






rULTON 



he would never have gained had he not demonstrated their 
truth by drawing down the lightning from heaven. Poten- 
tially, the steamboat of Fulton lay in the steam-engine of 
Watt. Practically, it did not exist before the American in- 
ventor directed the Clermont along the waters of the Hud- 
son, " a thing of life." His successive adaptations and im- 
provements in the application of the steam engine to naviga- 
tion are freely admitted, even by those who dispute the 
honor of the first invention. 

We may here pause with Professor Renwick, the biog- 
rapher of Fulton, to dwell for a moment upon this period of 
success, consecrated to felicity in the marriage of the trium- 
phant inventor with the niece of his friend and partner 
Chancellor Livingston. Miss Harriet Livingston was the 
ornament of society of which her eminent uncle was the 
head. 

" Pre-eminent," we are told, " in beauty, grace and ac- 
complishments, she speedily attracted the ardent admiration 
of Fulton ; and this was returned by an estimate of his talent 
and genius, amounting almost to enthusiasm. The epoch 
of their nuptials, the spring of 1808, was that of Fulton's 
greatest glory. Everything, in fact, appeared to concur in 
enhancing the advantages of his position. Leaving out of 
view all questions of romance, his bride was such as the most 
impartial judgment would have selected; young, lovely, 
highly educated, intelligent, possessed of what, in those days, 
was accounted wealth. His long labors in adapting the 
steam engine to the purposes of navigation had been fol- 
lowed by complete success ; and that very success had 
opened to him, through the exclusive grant of the navigation 
of the Hudson, the prospect of vast riches. Esteemed and 

135 



i THE HALL OF FAME 




honored, even by those who had been most incredulous while 
his scheme was in embryo, he felt himself placed on the 
highest step of the social scale." 

During the later years of Fulton's life he was largely 
employed in New York, in building and equipping, under 
the supervision of the Government, his famous canon-proof 
steam frigate, named after him, The Fulton. This frigate 
was launched in October, 1814, but was not completed until 
after its projector's death. Fulton had always had weak 
lungs, and in January, 181 5, in crossing the Hudson, amidst 
the ice, in an open boat, he took a severe cold, from which 
he did not rally, and he died February 24, 181 5. He is 
buried in the Livingston vault in Trinity Churchyard, New 
York City. 





PETER COOPER, 69 Votes 
ROBERT E. LEE, 68 Votes 



ELI WHITNEY, 69 Votes 
HORACE MANN, 67 Votes 



(138) 





CHAPTER XIII 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

" The distant mountains, that uprcar their solid bastions 
to the skies, are crossed by pathways that appear as zve to 
higher levels rise— the heights by great men reached and 
kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while 
their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night." 
Inscription on the tablet erected to the memory oe 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in the Hall oe Fame. 

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW first saw 
the light in Portland, Maine, being the second son 
born in the home of Stephen and Zilpha Longfellow. 
His appearance was made on the 27th of February, 1807. 
His name, Henry Wadsworth, was given in honor of a 
gallant brother of his mother, Lieutenant Henry Wadsworth, 
who fell before Tripoli while bravely serving his country. 

Henry Wadsworth was started to school when only five 
years of age, and kept at it most of the time until he entered 
Bowdoin College in the last half of his fifteenth year. 

He began to write poetry at a very early age. When 
the boy was barely thirteen years, and still a pupil at 
the Portland Academy, he composed a bolder effort, which 
is still preserved in manuscript, entitled '' Venice, an Italian 
Song." The manuscript is dated "Portland Academy, March 

139 



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THE HALL OF FAME 



17, 1820," and is signed with the full name of the writer. 
The first pubUshed poem of young Longfellow was on 
" Lovewell's Fight." It was composed while he was attend- 
ing the academy, and just after he had been reading an ac- 
count of the French and Indian war. Having written it to 
his taste, and copied it neatly on a fresh sheet of paper, it 
suddenly occurred to him that it was worthy of being 
printed. The young author had never yet seen aught of his 
compositions in type ; and, unlike many writers of later day, 
he was extremely shy about making a beginning. But the 
persuasion of one of his schoolfellows overcame his modesty ; 
and so, late on a certain evening, he mustered up courage 
to go and drop the manuscript into the editorial-box of one 
of the two weekly newspapers then published in the town. 

He waited patiently for the next issue of the paper, and 
was not a little chagrined to find, that, when it did appear, — 
the poem was left out. The weeks flew by, and still the poem 
remained unpublished. In a fit of disgust, the young author 
repaired to the editorial sanctum, and demanded the return 
of the manuscript. The request was granted; and Long- 
fellow then carried it to the editor of the rival newspaper — 
The Portland Gazette — by whom it was accepted and pub- 
lished. After that the poet was at liberty to print in the 
columns of that journal whatever he might happen to write; 
nor did he permit the opportunity to slip by unimproved. 

Longfellow did not begin full work at college until he 
had entered upon his Sophomore year. From Sep.ember, 
1 82 1, to commencement of 1822, he pursued most of his 
studies at home, and at the same time managed to keep up 
with his class. In the autumn of 1822 he began his studies 
at Brunswick. One of his classmates, the Hon. Tames W. 

140 



^^•^^ 




Bradbury, wrote of these school-days, sixty years later, as 
follows : 

'■ I first knew Longfellow when I entered as a Sopho- 
more in the class of which he was a member, in 1822; and 
I like to think of him as I then knew him. His slight, erect 
J^W figure, delicate complexion, and intelligent expression of 
countenance, come back to me indelibly associated with his 
name. 

" He was always a gentleman in his deportment, and a 
model in his character and habits. For a year or more we 
had our rooms out of college, and in the same vicinity ; and 
I consequently saw much more of him than of many others 
of our class. I recollect, that, at our Junior exhibition, a 
discussion upon the respective claims of the two races of 
men to this continent was assigned to Longfellow and my- 
self. He had the character of King Philip, and I of Miles 
Standish. He maintained that the continent was given by 
the Great Spirit to the Indians, and that the English were 
wrongful intruders. My reply, as nearly as I can recall it, 
was, that the aborigines were claiming more than their equal 
share of the earth, and that the Great Spirit never intended 
that so few in number should hold the whole continent for 
hunting-grounds, and that we had a right to a share of it, to 
improve and cultivate. Whether this occurrence had any 
thing to do in suggesting the subject for one of his admirable 
poems, or not, one thing is certain, that he subsequently 
made a great deal more of Miles Standish than I did on that 
occasion." 

Longfellow was graduated from Bowdoin College when 
he was nineteen years of age, and it is sufficient evidence of 
the high character of his work during his college course, and 

141 



THE HALL OF FAME 



of the way he had impressed himself upon the faculty, to 
call attention to the fact that he, at that early age, was almost 
immediately chosen to fill the chair of Modern Languages 
and Literature in his Alma Mater. 

One of Longfellow's biographers has well remarked 
that the biography of a poet is, in general, little more than an 
inventory of his writing. He is a man whose world is with- 
in, who must have quiet to write, and whose genius tempts 
him to perpetuate the quiet he finds. 

On his election to the chair of Modern Languages and 
Literature in Bowdoin College, he was granted the privilege 
of a preliminary tour in Europe, to qualify himself still 
further for the post. 

In 1826, and the two following years, accordingly, he 
made the tour of Europe, plunging at once into the study of 
the various languages where they are best learned, among 
the natives of the country. He visited France, Spain, Italy, 
Germany, Holland, and England. 

On his return he lectured at Bowdoin on the modern 
languages he had acquired, wrote articles for the North 
American Review, translated with great felicity the ex- 
quisite stanzas of the Spanish soldier-poet Manrique on the 
death of his father, and penned the sketches of his travels — 
which, with a little romance intermingled, make up his pleas- 
ant volume, the first of his collected prose works, entitled 
Outre Mer. In all that he did there was a nice hand 
visible, the touch of a dainty lover of good books, and ap- 
preciator of literary delicacies. 

The quaint, the marvelous, the remote, the picturesque, 
were his idols. He had been to the old curiosity shop of 
Europe, and brought home a stock of antiquated fancies of 

142 



LONGFELLOW 



curious workmanship, which, with a little modern burnish- 
ing, would well bear revival. They were henceforth the 
decorations of his verse, the ornaments of his prose. Every- 
where you will find in his writings, in his own phrase, 
" something to tickle the imagination " either of his own 
contrivance, or credited to the wit and wisdom, the marrowy 
conceits, of an antique worthy. 

From Hans Sachs to Jean Paul ; from Dante to Filicaia ; 
from Rabelais to Beranger; from old Fuller to Charles 
Lamb, the rare moralists and humorists were at his disposal. 
He was never at a loss for a happy quotation, and he who 
quotes well is half an original. His genius and benevolent 
nature, its kindly fellow worker, supplied the other half. 
Such was the promise of Outre Mer, a bright, fresh, 
inviting book, which a man, taking up at a happy moment — 
and every book requires its own happy moment — would bear 
in mind, and look out for the next appearance of its author. 

Then came, in 1835, one of the migrations from the 
blue bed to the brown — the Professor of Modern Languages 
at Bowdoin became Professor of Modern Languages and 
Literature at Harvard, in the honorable place of Mr. George 
Ticknor, resigned. 

The new appointment generated another tour in 
Europe, and this time the professor elect chose new ground 
for his travels. He visited a region then rarely traversed by 
Americans. He went to the north of Europe, presenting 
himself in Denmark and Sweden, beside a protracted stay in 
Holland, and a second visit to Germany, France and Eng- 
land — a profitable tour for studies, but a sad one to the poet's 
heart, for at Rotterdam, on this tour, he lost his young wife, 
the companion of his journey. 

M3 




THE HALL OF FAME 



Returning to America with his intimacy with his be- 
loved German authors refreshed by participation in their 
home scenes, and a newly acquired fondness for the northern 
sagas, destined to bear vigorous and healthy fruit in his 
writings, he commenced his duties at Harvard. 

He removed his household gods, his ** midnight folios," 
to Cambridge, and one summer afternoon, in 1837, ^^ ^^ has 
been prettily set forth by his friend Curtis — " the Howadji," 
in his sketches of the Homes of American Authors — estab- 
lished himself as a lodger in the old Craigie house, whilom 
the celebrated headquarters of General Washington in the 
Revolution. The house had a history ; it was the very place 
for the brain-haunted scholar to live and dream in, a stately 
mansion with royalist memories before the rebel days of 
Washington, with flavors of good cheer lingering about its 
cellars, and shadowy trains of stately damsels flitting along 
its halls and up its wide stairway. The place was rich with 
traditions of wealthy merchants and costly hospitalities, nor 
had it degenerated, according to the habit of most honored 
old mansions, as it approached the present day. Venerable 
and learned men of Harvard, still alive, had consecrated it 
by their studies. No wonder that the poet professor found 
there his " coigne of vantage," and made there " the pendent 
bed and procreant cradle " of his quick-coming fancies. 
Many a poem of his goodly volumes has been generated by 
the whispers of those old walls, and thence came forth 
" from his still, southeastern upper chamber, in which 
Washington had also slept, the most delectable of his prose 
writings, the romance of Hyperion." 

The biographer from whom we have before quoted 
says of this book: 

144 



)l 



LONGFELLOW 



" We well remember the impression this work made on 
its appearance, about 1839, with its wide-spread type and 
ample margin, and the pleasant kindling thoughts of love, 
and the beauty of nature, and old romantic glories, and 
quaint Jean Paul, ' the only one ' — its criticism of taste and 
the heart. It was the first specimen given to America, we 
believe, of the art novel, and a fit audience of youths and 
maidens welcomed its sweet utterances. Everything in it 
was choice and fragrant ; the old thoughts from the cloistered 
books were scented anew with living fragrance from the 
mountains and the fields. It was a scholar's book, with no 
odor of the musty parchment or smell of the midnight lamp. 
All was cheerful with the gaiety of travel ; the sorrow and 
the pathos were tempered by the romance — and over all 
was the purple light of youth." 

The volume of poems which next followed was entitled 
The Voices of the Night, and contained one of the favor- 
ites which, by itself, would have given any man a permanent 
place in literature, " The Psalm of Life." Indeed, this is 
perhaps the most famous of all of Longfellow's produc- 
tions. Few poems have been oftener committed to memory 
or have sank deeper into the heart of English speaking peo- 
ple. Longfellow used often to relate how he was once riding 
through one of the streets of London, when a workingman 
came up to the carriage, and inquired, ''Are you the writer 
of the 'Psalm of Life?'" He replied that he was. "Will 
you allow me to take you by the hand ? " The two shook 
hands, and the carriage was driven on. " That compliment," 
said Longfellow, " gave me more happiness than any I have 
ever received." 

October 15, 1842, Charles Sumner wrote a letter from 
14s 



^3^^ 



X^^^V^ 



THE HALL OF FAME 




M> 



Europe to Longfellow, which contains the following para- 
graph : 

" A few days ago an old classmate, upon whom the 
world had not smiled, came to my office to prove some debts 
before me in bankruptcy. While writing the formal parts 
of the paper, I inquired about his reading, and the books 
which interested him now. I believe he has been a great 
reader. He said that he read very little ; that he hardly 
found anything which was written from the heart, and was 
really true, ' Have you read Longfellow's Hyperion f ' I 
said. ' Yes,' he replied, ' and I admire it very much : I think 
it a very great book.' He then added in a very solemn man- 
ner, * I think I may say that Longfellow's " Psalm of Life " 
saved me from suicide. I first found it on a scrap of news- 
paper, in the hands of two Irish women, soiled and worn ; 
and I was at once touched by it.' Think, my dear friend, of 
this soul into which you have poured the waters of life." 

In 1836, when Longfellow was traveling abroad, he met 
Miss Frances Elizabeth Appleton, who was traveling in 
company with her parents, and became very much in love 
with her. Mr. George Lowell Austin, one of Longfellow's 
biographers is responsible for the statement that Longfellow 
returned home first ; and, in the romance of Hyperion, he 
told the story of his love, he being his own hero. After the 
publication of the book, friends on both sides readily recog- 
nized both the hero and the heroine, and quietly conjectured 
the sequel. It was whispered at the time that the young lady 
was not a little offended by the affair. Be that as it may, she 
was not inflexible, nor did she refuse to entertain the new 
proposal for her hand and heart. It was while Miss Apple- 
ton was spending the summer at Pittsfield that both were 

146 



l^^^i 





LONGFELLOW 



\>s 



won ; and on July 13, 1843, she became the wife of Professor 
Longfellow. The happy pair loitered among their friends in 
Berkshire until late in August, then returning to Cambridge. 

Mr. Sumner at the wedding officiated as " best man." 
On the 13th of August he wrote to Greene, " You will find 
dear Longfellow married to the beautiful and most lovely 
Mary Ashburton ;" and to Professor Mittermaier, of Heidel- 
berg, he wrote, " You have heard of the happiness of Long- 
fellow, who is married to a most beautiful lady, possessing 
every attraction of character and intelligence." 

In the following year, Mr. Nathan Appleton, having 
purchased the Craigie estate, presented it to his daughter, 
to be the future home of herself and her poet-husband. 

At the commencement of 1854, Longfellow closed his 
professional labors at Harvard College, where he had been 
teaching for eighteen years, and the next few years are very 
fruitful. " The Song of Hiawatha" was published in 1855, 
and the "Courtship of Miles Standish" followed in 1858. 
These are among his most popular productions. 

On the afternoon of Tuesday, July 9, 1861, there came 
the greatest sorrow of Longfellow's life. While Mrs. Long- 
fellow was sitting at her library table making seals for the 
entertainment of her two youngest children, a bit of burning 
wax slipped from her hands and fell into her lap. Im- 
mediately her dress, of light gauze texture, caught fire, and 
the lady was soon enveloped in flames. Mr. Longfellow, at 
the time, was at work in his study, and heard the piercing 
cry of his unfortunate wife. Rushing from the room, he 
picked up a mat or rug, and succeeded in smothering the 
merciless flames, not, however, before he had himself received 
serious injuries, and too late to prevent a fatal result. 

147 



'^m-cs, 




As soon as possible, Drs. Wyman and Johnson were 
sent for, and, still later, Dr. Henry J. Bigelow, of Boston. 
Everything that surgical skill could devise was at once 
brought into requisition. Both patients were kept under the 
influence of ether through the night. On Wednesday morn- 
ing Mrs. Longfellow rallied a little, and the family and 
friends ventured to hope that the worst might be averted. 
Not long afterwards, however, a change took place; and at 
eleven o'clock in the forenoon the gifted and devoted wife 
was by death released from her suffering. Mr. Longfellow's 
injuries were painful but not dangerous. 

The death of Mrs. Longfellow was a shock to all who 
were so fortunate as to be intimate with her. Her rare 
gifts of intellect, her brilliant and ever amiable manners, her 
gentle disposition, and her almost queenly grace, had ren- 
dered her most dear to all her friends; and she had always 
been looked upon as the most worthy mistress of the old 
Craigie mansion. Mr. Longfellow was almost crazed by 
his bereavement ; indeed, the effects of the shock never fully 
wore away, and caused him to grow old rapidly. And yet he 
bore his sorrow with a manliness that well befitted the author 
of " The Psalm of Life." He made his grief wholly per- 
sonal, and tried, though vainly, to conceal its poignancy be- 
neath his wonted cheerfulness and apparent forgetfulness of 
self. 

The last ten years of Longfellow's life were saddened 
for him by the death of many of his dearest friends. Pro- 
fessor Agassiz, Charles Sumner, and others who had been 
close to him, were greatly missed from his side. After a 
brief illness, he died on Friday morning, March 24, 1882, 
and was laid to rest in Mount Auburn Cemetery. 

148 




I<^J 



CHAPTER XIV. 
WASHINGTON IRVING 

"The intercourse between the author and his fellow men 
is ever new, active, and immediate — well may the ivorld 
cherish his renozvn. It has been purchased by the diligent 
dispensation of pleasure." Inscription on thk tablet 

ERECTED To THE MEMORY OE WASHINGTON IrVING IN THE 

Hall oe Fame. 

WASHINGTON IRVING was born in New York 
City, April 3, 1783. His father was a native of 
the Orkneys, his mother being from Falmouth, 
England. At the time of the birth of young Irving, the 
family had been settled in New York City about twenty 
years, and the father had become a most ardent patriot dur- 
ing the Revolution. He named his son Washington as a 
suggestion of his love for the great soldier and statesman. 

Young Irving's school-days were not over-rigorous. He 
was never robust at any time of his life, and during his young 
manhood always had to spend a part of every year looking 
after his health. The tradition runs that he was not an 
over precocious boy in school. The story is told that com- 
ing home one day he said to his mother, " The Madame says 
I am a dunce. Isn't it a pity ! " The story is worth telling, 
as an illustration of the fact that genius does not always 

149 




THE HALL OF FAME 






develop in the early years of life ; while sometimes it is re- 
vealed then, in many others it is a plant of slow growth 
and matures late in life's season. From what one can glean 
from such material as we have at hand, it would not appear 
that Washington Irving derived very much good from the 
schools of his day; and as ill-health prevented his entering 
Columbia College, he passed through life with little knowl- 
edge of Greek and Latin. His home education in English 
literature was far better. He read Chaucer and Spencer, 
Addison and Goldsmith, and all the rest of the old-time 
British classics. The later literature which the boy of to-day 
regards as classics, had not yet been produced. Of Ameri- 
can literature there was none to stir a boy's heart, and 
Dickens had not yet begun his great work on the other side 
of the water. 

Not being able to go to Columbia College on account of 
ill-health, and being seriously threatened with pulmonary 
difficulties, Washington Irving made a pilgrimage to Europe 
at the threshold of his manhood. His tour carried him to 
France, Italy, Switzerland and England. In Rome he met 
Washington Allston, the artist, and was almost persuaded to 
turn his attention to painting, for which he had considerable 
taste and inclination. He finally decided, however, that it 
was not for him. 

When Irving returned to New York, he entered the law 
office of Judge Josiah Hoffman, and diligently continued 
until admitted to practice. 

The very year young Irving was admitted to the Bar, in 
January, 1807, appeared in New York the first number of 
Salmagundi; or, the Whim Whams and Opinions of Launce- 
lot Langstaff, Esq., and Others. A small i8mo publication 

150 



j*iP) 






IRVING 



of twenty pages, which was destined to make its mark upon 
the town, and attract the notice of a wider circle. This 
sportive journal was the production of three very clever 
wits — Washington Irving, his elder brother William, the 
verse-maker of the fraternity, and James K. Paulding, who 
also then first rose to notice in this little constellation. 

New York was not at that time too large to be under the 
control of a skilful, genial satirist. Compared with the 
metropolis of the present day, it was but a huge family, 
where everybody of any consequence was known by every- 
body else. A postman might run over it in an hour. One 
bell could ring all its inhabitants to prayer and one theatre 
sufficed for its entertainment. The city, in fact, while large 
enough to afford material for and shelter a humorist with 
some degree of privacy, was, so far as society was concerned, 
a very manageable, convenient instrument to play upon. The 
genial wits of Salmagundi touched the strings cunningly, 
and the whole town, with agitated nerves, contributed to the 
music. The humors of fashion, dress, the dancing assem- 
blies, the military displays, the elections, in turn yielded 
their sport. 

Salmagundi continued through twenty numbers, and 
was soon followed by the famous. History of New York 
from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch 
Dynasty, by Diedrich Knickerbocker. The book was com- 
menced with but little regard to the form in which it finally 
made its appearance. Previously to its publication, some- 
thing like a great history was looked for from Diedrich 
Knickerbocker. To whet the public appetite, an advertise- 
ment was inserted in the Evening Post, narrating, under the 
heading, "Distressing," the departure from his lodgings at 

151 





the Columbia Hotel, Mulberry street, of "a small, elderly 
gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, by 
the name of Knickerbocker," and asking printers to serve 
the cause of humanity by giving the notice insertion. "A 
traveler " next sends a random note of an old gentleman 
answering the description, having been seen on the road to 
Albany, above Kingsbridge. After the lapse of a reasonable 
time, Seth Handaside, the Yankee landlord, announces his 
intention to remunerate himself by the sale of a curious 
manuscript Mr. Knickerbocker had left behind him. The 
same number of the journal had an advertisement of the 
publication. 

There is a great deal of fun in Knickerbocker — no 
doubt some sheer burlesque, which begins and ends with the 
page, but far more genuine humor applicable to common 
scenes and more real adventures. Some of the old Dutch 
families of the day took offense at the free use of their 
names, which were very unceremoniously handled. 

One old-timer who lived on the North River, who re- 
joiced in the name of Knickerbocker, was specially aggrieved. 
And one leading colonial family excluded the author always 
from entertainments and receptions at their house. Many 
years after the spirit of the work was condemned in a grave 
paper read before the New York Historical Society; and 
the censure was afterwards revived by so judicious a person 
as Mr. Edward Everett. 

The truth of the matter is, that society must be very 
weak indeed, which cannot bear the infliction of so really 
good-natured a jest as this Diedrich Knickerbocker's His- 
tory of New York. The Dutchmen of New York had never 
been called Knickerbockers before; now it is quite an ac- 

152 




credited designation, not without honor and esteem through- 
out the world. 

In the words of the author's apology, prefixed to the 
revised edition of 1848: "Before the appearance of my 
work, the popular traditions of our city were unrecorded ; 
the peculiar and racy customs and usages derived from our 
Dutch progenitors were unnoticed or regarded with in- 
difference, or adverted to with a sneer. Now they form a 
convivial currency, and are brought forward on all occasions : 
they link our v/hole community together in good humor and 
good fellowship ; they are the rallying points of home feeling 
— the seasoning of our civic festivities — the staple of local 
tales and local pleasantries, and are so harped upon by our 
writers of popular fiction, that I find myself almost crowded 
off the legendary ground which I was the first to explore, by 
the host who have followed in my footsteps." 

This home sensitiveness, of course, was never felt 
abroad. A copy of the work was sent by the author's friend, 
Mr. Brevoort, to Sir Walter Scott. His verdict upon this 
" most excellently jocose history," as he termed it, is con- 
clusive. It was read in his family with absolute riot of en- 
joyment. He compared it advantageously with Swift, and 
failed not to note its more serious pathetic passages, which 
reminded him of Sterne. This led the way afterward to an 
introduction to Scott at Abbotsford, and the formation of a 
friendship which lived while Scott lived, and which was 
cherished among the most valued recollections of Irving's 
life. 

His next literary performance was a brief biography of 
the poet Campbell, written for an American edition of the 
poet's works. The author showed himself at home in this 

153 






department of literature, in which he subsequently became 
so greatly distinguished. 

In 1822 Alexander H. Everett invited Irving to visit 
him in Spain, with a view to the translation of a collection of 
Spanish documents which had just been thrown open to the 
public by the government. 

He undertook the work, which called for something far 
above translation, and the essayist bloomed into the historian. 

The History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher 
Columbus, appeared in due time, followed by the Voyages 
and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus. Both 
works greatly enhanced the reputation of the author. 
Literature, indeed, awards her highest honors to the his- 
torian. History has laid Macaulay in Westminster Abbey. 
Jeffrey reviewed the Columbus with enthusiasm in the 
Edinburgh, and the George IV. fifty-guinea gold medal 
was conferred upon Hallam and Irving at the same time. 

The literary execution of the Columbus must be pro- 
nounced in general very happy. There is perhaps a little 
cloying sweetness in its regularly constructed periods ; but 
these elegantly apportioned sentences are always made to 
bear their full weight of thought. The condensation is ad- 
mirable, while there is a richness of phraseology, and a 
warm glow of the imagination is spread over the whole. 

It is not to be supposed that this excellence was attained 
without labor. It is the fiat of fate, says Wirt, from which 
no power of genius can absolve a man. Irving, at the sug- 
gestion of Lieutenant Slidell, who pronounced the style un- 
equal, rewrote nearly the whole of the work. Professor 
Longfellow, who saw Irving while it was in progress in 
Spain, recalls the *' patient, persistent toil " of the author. 

154 



;^ 



mm^ 



Kdiiiib: 



wm^M 



IRVING 






The genius of Irving delighted in these Spanish themes. 
After he had made the intimate acquaintance of various 
parts of Europe, the land of the Saracen seemed to present 
to him the greatest attractions. He devoted his genius to 
the revival of her history, and the embellishment of her 
legends. Had opportunity permitted, he would doubtless 
have produced companion volumes to the Columbus on 
themes which afterwards engaged the pen of Prescott. As 
it was, he gave the world those delightful books, the Con- 
quest of Granada, the Alhamhra, the Legends of the Con- 
quest of Spain, and Mahomet and his Successors. His 
imagination was thoroughly captivated by the daring, 
pathetic, and tender scenes of these old tales of adventure, 
with which his genius was very apt to blend some lurking 
touch of humor. 

At the close of a long residence in Spain, Irving paid a 
visit to England, where, for a time, he was Secretary of 
Legation to the American Embassy. He returned to Amer- 
ica in 1832, having been absent from this country seventeen 
years. His welcome home was most hearty. He was given 
a public dinner by his friends, among whom were many of 
the most distinguished people in America. Chancellor Kent 
presided at the banquet. Irving was praised in eloquent 
speeches for the conspicuous service he had rendered the 
literature of his country. 

His return to America seemed to be a source of fresh 
impulse to Irving, and to revive in him the adventurous 
spirit of youth. The summer following his return, he visited 
the Indian tribes west of the Mississippi River, of which he 
not only published an account, but the journey so sharpened 
his pen with Western soirit that he soon produced Astoria; 

155 



THE HALL OF FAME 



or. Anecdotes of an Enterprise beyond the Rocky Moun- 
tains, and the next year Adventures of Captain Bonne- 
ville, U. S. A., in the Rocky Mountains and the Far West. 

In 1842 Irving received the appointment from the 
Government of Minister to Spain. Daniel Webster secured 
the appointment for him, and announced it to him as a sur- 
prise. A compHment paid him at this time is of interest. 
It occurs in Charles Dickens' American Notes, in a de- 
scription of a Presidential Drawing Room at Washington, 
when Irving was present in his new character for the first 
and last time before going abroad. 

" I sincerely believe," says Dickens, " that in all the 
madness of American politics, few public men would have 
been so earnestly, devotedly, and affectionately caressed as 
this most charming writer: and I have seldom respected a 
public assembly more than I did this eager throng, when I 
saw them turning with one mind from noisy orators and 
officers of state, and flocking with a generous and honest 
impulse round the man of quiet pursuits : proud in his 
promotion as reflecting back upon their country : and grate- 
ful to him with their whole hearts for the store of graceful 
fancies he had poured out among them." 

Mr. Irving passed several years in Spain in his diplo- 
matic capacity, devoting himself assiduously to the duties of 
his position. His dispatches in the State Paper Office will 
doubtless, should the time ever come for their publication, 
present a valuable, picture of the changing political fortunes 
of the country during his term. 

On his return from Spain, Mr. Irving made his home 
for the remainder of his life at his beautiful country seat 
" Sunnyside," on the eastern bank of the Hudson, some 

156 



IRVING 



twenty miles from New York. Here he resided in the midst 
of his family, consisting of his brother and nieces, occasion- 
ally visiting his friends in Virginia and elsewhere. 

At Sunnyside, in these later years, he prepared the re- 
vised editions of his books, which now became a source of 
regular profit, wrote the Life of Oliver Goldsmith, and 
completed the crowning labor of his long literary career, the 
Life of George Washington. The interval between the 
publication of the first of the five volumes and the last, was 
five years. It was completed the very year of his death. His 
design was to present in simple, unambitious narrative, a 
thoroughly truthful view of the character of Washington — 
of the acts of his life — with an impartial estimate of the men 
and agencies by which he was surrounded. He attained all 
this and more. His work has been read with interest, nay, 
with affection, and promises long to retain its hold upon the 
public. 

Mr. Irving had now reached the close of life, with 
as few of the infirmities as fall to the lot even of those ac- 
counted most fortunate. His health, delicate in his youth, 
had strengthened with his years, and during the long periods 
of his residence abroad he knew no illness. The breaking- 
up of his powers was ^gradual, affecting only his physical 
strength. His mind — the felicity of his thoughts, the 
beauty of his expression, his style, were unimpaired to the 
last. His death occurred suddenly, in his Sunnyside cottage, 
as he was retiring to rest on the night of November 28, 
1859. He fell with scarcely a word — 

" Death broke at once the vital chain. 
And freed his soul the nearest way." 
157 




THE HALL OF FAME 



CHAPTER XV. 
JONATHAN EDWARDS 

" God is the head of the universal system of existence 
from whom all is perfectly derived and on whom all is most 
absolutely dependent, whose being and beauty is the sum 
and comprehension of all existence and excellence." Inscrip- 
tion ON THK TABLET ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF JONATHAN 

Edwards in the Hall oe Fame. 



J 



ONATHAN EDWARDS, the great New England 
theologian, was born in the town of East Windsor, 
Connecticut, October 5, 1703. The family was of 
Welsh extraction, and his father, Timothy Edwards, was a 
graduate of Harvard College, in the class of 1691. As there 
was a great lack of preparatory schools, Timothy Edwards, 
who was also the pastor of the East Parish of Windsor, 
fitted students for college, and had the reputation of being 
a successful teacher. He was pastor of the same church for 
over fifty years. And yet. Professor Allen, in his biog- 
raphy of Jonathan Edwards, assures us that it was to his 
mother, Jonathan was chiefly indebted for his intellectual in- 
heritance. She had received a superior education in Boston, 
and is described as, " tall, dignified, and commanding in ap- 
pearance, affable and gentle in her manner, and regarded as 
surpassing her husband in native vigor of understanding," 

158 





1. INTERIOR VIEW STATESMENS' CORNER 2. EXTERIOR VIEW AUTHORS' CORNER (159) 



EDWARDS 



»»«■ 

[•?£ 



Jonathan Edwards was the fifth child and the only son 
in a family of eleven children. He was educated with his 
sisters, the older daughters assisting the father in the super- 
intendence of his studies. A few of his letters remain, writ- 
ten while he was a boy, but they disclose little of his char- 
acter. He appears as docile and receptive, an affectionate 
and sensitive nature, responding quickly and very deeply 
to the influences of his childhood. He was interested in his 
studies, ambitious to excel, and particularly a keen observer 
of the mysteries of the outward world and eager to discern 
its laws. Everything points to him as a child of rare intel- 
lectual precocity. When not more than twelve years old he 
wrote a letter in a bantering style refuting the idea of the 
materiality of the soul. At about the same age he wrote an 
elaborate and instructive account of the habits of the field 
spider, based upon his own observation. He was not quite 
thirteen when he entered Yale College, then in an inchoate 
condition and not yet fixed in a permanent home. The course 
of instruction at this time must have been a broken and im- 
perfect one. Such as it was, Edwards followed it faithfully, 
now at New Haven and then at Wethersfield, whither a part 
of the students emigrated in consequence of some distur- 
bance, in which he seems to have shared. A letter to his 
father from the rector of the college speaks of his " promis- 
ing abilities and great advances in learning." 

He was not quite seventeen when he graduated, taking 
with his degree the highest honors the institution could 
offer. 

According to Dr. Allen, no exact date can be fixed for 
his conversion ; even the time when he " joined the church " 
is unknown. But we know the years in which he was pass- 

i6i 





mg through the spiritual struggles out of which he was to 
emerge a man of God, recognizing the call of God, and 
answering it with the entire devotion of his will. 

This period of conflict, of aspiration, of resolution, and 
of consecration follows upon his graduation from college in 
1719, at the age of sixteen. For two years he remained at 
New Haven, in order, as was then the custom, to carry on 
his theological studies. He was then called to New York to 
take charge of a Presbyterian church newly organized, where 
he remained for eight months, preaching to the acceptance 
of the congregation and leaving them with reluctance. 

Returning to his father's house, he was soon after made 
a tutor in Yale College, an office which he held for two years 
(1724-1726), helping to overcome the shock to the college 
and the community caused by the secession of its rector Mr. 
Cutler, Mr. Johnson one of its tutors, and others, to the 
Episcopal Church. He was, says Dr. Stiles, one of the 
pillar tutors, and the glory of the college at this critical 
period. His tutorial renown was great and excellent. He 
filled and sustained his office with great ability, dignity, and 
honor. "' For the honor of literature these things ought not 
to be forgotten." 

From 1720 to 1726, from the age of seventeen to the 
age of twenty-three, runs the period during which he wrote 
his Resolutions and the greater part of his religious diary. 
His biographer says : " These are no ordinary resolutions, 
and this is no common diary. It is, when we read them as if 
we stood behind the veil witnessing the evolution of a great 
soul. Like Luther, he appears as in search for some high 
end of whose nature he is not clearly conscious. But he will be 
content with nothing but the highest result which it is open 

162 



EDWARDS 



to man to achieve or for God of his grace to impart. Refer- 
ring to this period of his life some twenty years later, he re- 
marks, ' I made the seeking of salvation the main business 
of my life.' " 

This seeking and the waiting were at last rewarded. 
He was reading one day the words of Scripture, " Now unto 
the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be 
honor and glory forever. Amen," when there came to him 
for the first time a sort of inward, sweet delight in God and 
divine things. A sense of the divine glory was, as it were, 
diffused through him. He thought how happy he should be 
if he might be carried up to God in heaven, and be, as it were, 
swallowed up in him forever. He began to have an inward, 
sweet sense of Christ and the work of redemption. The 
Book of Canticles attracted him as a fit expression for his 
mood. It seemed to him as if he were in a kind of vision, 
alone in the mountains or some solitary wilderness, convers- 
ing sweetly with Christ and wrapt and swallowed up in God. 
He told his father the things he was experiencing, and was 
affected by the discourse they had together. Walking once 
in a solitary place in his father's pasture, there came to him 
again a sweet sense of the conjunction of the majesty and 
the grace of God. 

On the 15th of February, 1727, Edwards was ordained 
at Northampton as the colleague of his grandfather, the 
Rev. Solomon Stoddard, then in his eighty-fourth year, and 
who had been pastor for fifty-five years. He had been a 
great man in his day. Edwards speaks of him as " a very 
great man, of strong powers of mind, of great grace, and 
a great authority, of a masterly countenance, speech, and 
behavior." Mr. Stoddard lived in the days when, as Hutch- 

163 




THE HALL OF FAME 



*^-^^:«ii 



inson remarks, " the elders continued to be consulted in every 
affair of importance. The share they held in temporal 
affairs added to the weight they had acquired from their 
spiritual employments, and they were in high esteem." But 
for Mr. Stoddard there was felt something more than the 
usual respect and veneration. " The officers and leaders of 
Northampton," says Edwards, " imitated his manners, 
which were dogmatic, and thought it an excellency to be like 
him." Many of the people, he adds, esteemed all his sayings 
as oracles, and looked upon him " almost as a sort of deity." 
The Indians of the neighborhood, interpreting this admira- 
tion in their own way, spoke of Mr. Stoddard as " the Eng- 
lishman's God." 

Edwards was at the time of the opening of his pastorate 
at Northampton twenty- four years of age. He was very tall, 
being upwards of six feet in height, slenderly built, and of a 
very serious and grave manner. His face was of a feminine 
cast, implying at once a capacity for both sweetness and 
severity, — the Johannine type of countenance, we should 
say, just as his spirit is that of St. John, rather than that of 
Peter or of Paul. It is a face which bespeaks a delicate and 
nervous organization. 

The life which he laid out for himself, according to the 
ministerial standards of the day, was the life of a student, 
who would not allow his time to be frittered away in useless 
employments. He visited the people in cases only of neces- 
sity. Thirteen hours of study daily is said to have been his 
rule. His custom at first was to write two sermons every 
week, one of which was delivered on Sunday, the other at 
the weekly evening lecture. It is probable that he kept up 
the habit of writing his sermons in the early years of his 

164 




EDWARDS 



ministry. His unpublished manuscripts show that he must 
have abandoned this practice, however, in later years, sub- 
stituting plans or outlines carefully prepared. He was not, 
therefore, a mere reader of sermons, according to the general 
impression. On special occasions, his sermons were written 
in full. The tradition in regard to the sermon at Enfield 
makes it to have been read very closely from the manu- 
script. His manner in the pulpit is described as quiet ex- 
ceedingly, with little or no gesture ; a voice not loud, but 
distinct and penetrating. 

Soon after coming to Northampton, Edwards decided to 
seek him a wife. While in New Haven, in attendance on 
Yale College, he had first heard of Sarah Pierrepont, who 
is described as a young woman of marvelous beauty. When 
young Edwards was only twenty years old, and this girl 
thirteen, he wrote a paragraph concerning her, which the 
famous Dr. Chalmers is said to have greatly admired because 
of its eloquence. 

" They say there is a young lady in New Haven who 
is beloved of that great Being who made and rules the 
world, and that there are certain seasons in which this great 
Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and 
fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight, and that she 
hardly cares for anything except to meditate on Him ; that 
she expects after a while to be received up where He is, to be 
raised up out of the world and caught up into heaven ; being 
assured that He loves her too well to let her remain at a 
distance from Him always. There she is to dwell with Him, 
and to be ravished with His love and delight forever. There- 
fore, if you present all the world before her, with the richest 
of its treasures, she disregards and cares not for it, and is 

165 



•••v;: 



THE HALL OF FAME 



unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a strange 
sweetness in her mind, and singular purity in her affections ; 
is most just and conscientious in all her conduct; and you 
could not persuade her to do anything wrong or sinful, if 
you would give her all the world, lest she should offend this 
great Being. She is of a wonderful calmness, and universal 
benevolence of mind; especially after this great God has 
manifested Himself to her mind. She will sometimes go 
about from place to place singing sweetly ; and seems to be 
always full of joy and pleasure, and no one knows for what. 
She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and 
seems to have some one invisible always conversing with 
her." 

This was the Sarah Pierrepont, to whom Edwards 
wrote from Northampton entreating her to marry him at 
once. " Patience," he writes to her, " is commonly esteemed 
a virtue, but in this case I may almost regard it as a vice." 
The marriage took place in 1727, only a few months after 
his ordination, the bride having recently attained the age of 
seventeen. 

Sarah Pierrepont Edwards seems to have been worthy 
of the eloquent description of her lover. The famous George 
Whitefield, visiting them many years afterwards, and spend- 
ing several days at Northampton, left his impressions of his 
visit in his diary in the following paragraph : 

" On the Sabbath felt wonderful satisfaction in being at 
the house of Mr. Edwards. He is a son himself and hath 
also a daughter of Abraham for his wife. A sweeter couple 
I have not seen. Their children were dressed, not in silks 
and satins, but plain, as becomes the children of those who 
in all things ought to be examples of Christian simplicity. 

166 




She is a woman adorned with a meek and quiet spirit, and 
talked so feelingly and so solidly of the things of God, and 
seemed to be such an helpmeet to her husband, that she 
caused me to renew those prayers which for some months I 
have put up to God, that he would send me a daughter of 
Abraham to be my wife. I find upon many accounts it is my 
duty to marry. Lord, I desire to have no choice of my own. 
Thou knowest my circumstances." 

In 1750, Jonathan Edwards being out of harmony with 
his church at Northampton, was dismissed as pastor. He 
had been pastor twenty-three years, and found himself at the 
age of forty-seven with a large family of children and no 
means of support. In this time of sore trial, some friends 
in Scotland sent generous contributions for his relief. In 
1 75 1, he received an invitation to become the pastor of the 
church at Stockbridge, then a frontier town of the colony, 
forty miles west of Northampton. He had hardly accepted 
the invitation to Stockbridge when he received a call from a 
church in Virginia, which also promised him a generous 
support. 

The family of Edwards when he went to Stockbridge 
included ten children, one daughter having died. Two of 
the older daughters were married about the time when their 
father's difficulties were at their height, — Mary at the age of 
sixteen, and Sarah at the age of twenty-two, — events which 
must have called off his mind from his troubles, and re- 
newed his interest in the changes and chances of this mortal 
life. Of the daughters who went with him to Stockbridge, 
Esther was one, to whose beauty, inherited from both 
parents, as well as her intellectual brightness, tradition bears 
ample testimony. She had attracted the attention of the Rev. 

167 



THE HALL OF FAME 



Aaron Burr, a noted personage in those aristocratic days, 
and to Stockbridge the devoted lover followed her, gaining 
her consent to matrimony in a short courtship. Mr. Burr 
was a man of brilliant qualities, who had recently been called 
to the presidency of Nassau Hall, — what was afterwards 
to become known as Princeton College. 

There were two children from this union, one of them a 
boy, named after his father, Aaron Burr, who became the 
famous, and later the infamous, Aaron Burr, who occupies 
so peculiar a place in American history. 

Edwards' great work, the Treatise on the Will, was 
published in 1754, and was perhaps the greatest literary sen- 
sation of a religious sort, of that century. It has long since 
taken its place among the few greatest books of English 
theology. 

In the last year of his life, Edwards received a call to 
become the President of Princeton College. The call was 
unexpected, and was accepted with great hesitation. Leav- 
ing his family behind him, he set out for Princeton, in the 
month of January, 1758. 

At the time when Edwards reached Princeton the com- 
munity were in a state of alarm over the spread of the 
small-pox in the village and its vicinity. As Edwards had 
not had the disease, the situation seemed to justify in his case 
the preventive treatment known as inoculation, in the hope 
of preserving a life so dear and valuable. The objections 
to the practice had grown weaker in the course of years ; it 
was also said to have been attended with good results under 
the skilful direction of the physicians at Princeton. Edwards 
himself proposed its trial, and the corporation of the college 
consented. He was inoculated an the 13th of February, and 

168 



h 



•Co] 




so successfully that for a while it was believed that the 
danger in his case was over. But the hope was a delusive 
one, and the end was near. 

As he lay dying, aware that his time was short, his 
thoughts reverted to the children who were to be fatherless, 
and more particularly to the absent wife in the distant home 
at Stockbridge. " Tell her," he said to his daughter, who 
took down his words, " that the uncommon union which has 
so long subsisted between us has been of such a nature as I 
trust is spiritual, and therefore will continue forever." 

After this, when he seemed insensible and those around 
him were already lamenting his departure, he spoke once 
more : " Trust in God and ye need not fear." His death 
took place on the 22d of March, 1758, in the fifty-fifth year 
of his age. Only sixteen days afterwards his daughter 
Esther followed him out of the world. Nor did Mrs. Ed- 
wards long survive. In September of the same year, she 
died at Philadelphia, where she had gone by way of Prince- 
ton to assume the charge of her infant grandchildren. In 
the graveyard at Princeton they rest together who were 
lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their deaths were 
not divided. 



Topi 







169 



THE HALL OF FAME 








CHAPTER XVL 




SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE 

"I am persuaded that whatever facilitates intercourse 
between the different portions of the human family will have 
the effect, under the guidance of sound moral principles, to 
promote the best interests of man." Inscription on the 

TABLET ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OE SamUEL F. B. MoRSE 

in the Hall of Fame. 

THE inventor of the electric telegraph, Samuel Finley 
Breese Morse, was bom in Charleston, Massachu- 
setts, April 27, 1 79 1. His father Jedediah Morse 
was, at the time of the birth of his son, pastor of the church 
in Charlestown. The boy received a good preparatory edu- 
cation in a private school and afterwards in Phillips Academy 
at Andover. Here he was fitted for Yale College, which 
he entered in 1807. Timothy Dwight was then the President 
of Yale, and being a warm personal friend of the boy's 
father, took a deep interest in the young student. 

During his college course young Morse was specially 
interested in chemistry, and showed great curiosity in the 
vague experiments which were then being made in elec- 
tricity. The testimony of Professors Day and Silliman, who 
were his teachers in Yale, was given in court in defense of 
his claim to priority in the invention of the telegraph. This 

170 



MORSE 



showed that while still a student his mind was interested in 
the subject and full of suggestive ideas concerning it. 

But as yet he had no great purpose of being an inventor. 
He had a happy gift as an artist, and it was the dream of his 
soul to become a great painter. Soon after graduation, in 
1810, he made the acquaintance of Washington Allston, who 
was on a visit to this country. Allston was a most fascinat- 
ing man, and every young American who had anything of 
the artist in him, seems to have dreamed of being a painter 
after once coming under the influence of his charm. 

Morse's father, while he would much have preferred a 
more practical course for his son, gave his consent, and 
furnished him the means with which to go abroad and pur- 
sue his art studies. He sailed with Allston, arriving in Lon- 
don in August, 181 1. Another young art student, Charles 
Robert Leslie, destined to be famous, came soon after to 
London, and a warm friendship sprang up between Morse 
and Leslie. They took lodgings together, and together ex- 
plored the world of art which lay before them. The two 
eminent American painters, Benjamin West, President of 
the Roya;l Academy, and John Singleton Copley, were then 
in London, approaching the close of their distinguished 
career. They were of the same age, about seventy-three; 
Copley, oppressed with infirmities. West, reaping the fruit 
of his diligent labors and splendid opportunities, still actively 
employed in his studio. Morse carried letters to both these 
venerable artists. West, ever ready to impart to his young 
countrymen the lessons of his long and successful artist's 
life, received him in his accustomed friendly manner, opened 
to him the doors of the British Museum, and cordially as- 
sisted his studies. 

171 



■i THE HALL OF FAME 



^i;« 




Dunlap, in his history of the arts of design in America, 
gives a pretty picture of this opening of the career of Morse 
and Leslie in London. He says the first portrait which they 
painted were of each other in fancy costume, Morse being 
represented in old Scottish dress, with black-plumed bonnet 
and tartan plaid. Leslie in the garb of a Spanish cavalier, 
with Vandyke ruff, black cloak, and slashed sleeves. The 
two friends, however, had more serious work before them, 
and resolutely set themselves to perform it. They were, at 
this time, intent on the grand and colossal, and both appear 
to have been engaged on paintings of Hercules, while AUston 
was painting his ''Dead man restored to life by touching the 
bones of Elijah." Morse chose for his subject *' The Dying 
Hercules," and following the precept and example of AU- 
ston, first modeled the figure with such success as to gain 
the admiration of West, and afterwards received for the 
work the prize in sculpture of a gold medal from the London 
Society of Arts. He painted the picture from the model, 
and sent it to the Royal Academy Exhibition, at Somerset 
House, in the spring of 1813, to which Leslie also contributed 
a picture, entitled '' Murder," suggested by a passage in the 
Second Act of Macbeth. The pictures of both artists were 
hung in excellent positions on the gallery walls, and were 
favorably noticed in the newspapers of the day. 

This success encouraged Morse to contend for the 
premium offered by the Academy, the following year, for 
the best historical composition on the pretty mythological 
subject of " The Judgment of Jupiter in the case of Apollo, 
Marpessa and Idas." He completed the picture, but was 
unable to present it, in consequence of his unavoidable re- 
turn to America, and his consequent inability to meet the 

172 



B5t# 






MORSE 



5CA!^. 



^^^-T: 



requisitions of the Academy, which required the personal 
attendance of the successful artist at the delivery of the 
prize. West wished him to remain ; and afterwards said that 
if he had done so, and entered into the competition, he would 
have gained the reward, a gold medal and fifty guineas. 

Morse carried this picture with him to America, in the 
summer of 1815, and set it up in his studio at Boston, 
where he now established himself. There was but a poor 
market for works of art in the country at that time. The 
artist found no purchaser for his prize picture, and eventu- 
ally bestowed it upon a friend and patron, Mr. John A. 
Allston, of South Carolina. 

Driven from Boston by want of support in that city, he 
went to New Hampshire, and for a time painted portraits at 
fifteen dollars a head, a rate which secured him plenty of 
employment, and at least kept him from starvation. From 
New Hampshire he was induced to go to Charleston, South 
Carolina, where his prospects were much improved, and the 
price of his portraits raised to sixty dollars, with a long list 
of orders. 

This success gave him the means of returning to New 
Hampshire, to marry Miss Lucretia Walker, to whom he had 
been for some time engaged, and for four years he spent his 
winters regularly and with profit in the southern city. He 
then made his home for a while in New Haven, and was en- 
gaged in painting a large picture of the interior of the House 
of Representatives at Washington, with portraits of the mem- 
bers. From New Haven he removed to New York, and 
was employed by the Corporation of the city in painting a 
full length portrait of General Lafayette, who was then, in 
1824, visiting the United States. 

173 




THE HALL OF FAME 




Shortly after this, in the autumn of 1825, Mr. Morse was 
instrumental in forming an association of artists, " a Society 
for Improvement in Drawing," out of which grew the Na- 
tional Academy of Design, of which he was elected first 
President. The object of this institution was not merely 
to furnish to the public an annual exhibition of the works of 
living painters and sculptors, but to unite artists in a liberal 
and comprehensive society, for their common support and 
protection; to educate students, and advance the knowledge 
of art in the community by every practical resource. In aid 
of these objects, Mr. Morse, who had already delivered a 
series of lectures on the Fine Arts before the New York 
Athenaeum, repeated the course before the students and 
members of the new Academy. He also delivered an elabo- 
rate discourse, in which he reviewed the history of similar 
institutions in Europe, on the first anniversary of the 
Academy in 1827. 

In consequence of the collision of the new association 
with a former society, " The Academy of Arts," which it 
superseded, there was much public controversy attending the 
early movements of the Academy, in which, as well as in re- 
moving various prejudices which were in the way of the 
enterprise, the pen of Morse was frequently employed. 

In 1829 Mr. Morse revisited England and extended his 
tour to the Continent, residing some time in France and 
Italy, and employing himself not only in original works, but 
in masterly copies of the old masters. On his return voyage 
to America, in 1832, an incident occurred which determined 
his devotion to a new field of scientific labor, in his invention 
of the Recording Telegraph. 

Morse was returning to America on the packet ship 
174 



k'^&\ 




^i$t>> 



^ 



W 



Sully from Havre. One day a conversation arose in the 
cabin upon electricity and magnetism. Dr. Charles T. Jack- 
son, of Boston, described an experiment recently made in 
Paris with an electro-magnet, by means of which electricity 
had been transmitted through a great length of wire arranged 
in circles around the walls of a large apartment. The trans- 
mission had been instantaneous, and it seemed as though the 
flight of electricity was too rapid to be measured. Among 
the group of passengers no one listened with such eagerness 
to Dr. Jackson's story of this experiment as Morse. Painter 
though he had been for many years, he was well versed in 
science, and all his boyish enthusiasm about chemistry and 
electricity came back to him. During all the years of his 
artist life he had retained his early love for science, and 
kept himself well informed of its progress. Hence the eager- 
ness with which he listened to Dr. Jackson's narrative, 

" Why," said he, when the Doctor had finished, " if that 
is so, and the presence of electricity could be made visible in 
any desired part of the circuit, I see no reason why intelli- 
gence might not be transmitted instantaneously by elec- 
tricity." 

" How convenient it would be," added one of the pas- 
sengers, " if we could send news in that manner." 

" Why can't we? " asked Morse, fascinated by the idea. 

From that hour the subject occupied his thoughts ; and 
he began forthwith to exercise his Yankee ingenuity in 
devising the requisite apparatus. Voyages were long in 
those days, and he had nothing to do but meditate and con- 
trive. Before the Sully dropped her anchor in New York 
harbor, he had invented and put upon paper, in drawings 
and explanatory words, the chief features of the apparatus 

175 



CJH-S 



THE HALL OF FAME 



employed, to this hour, by far the greater number of the 
telegraphic lines throughout the world. 

The system of dots and marks, the narrow ribbon of 
paper upon a revolving block, and a mode of burying the 
wires in the earth after inclosing them in tubes, all were 
thought of and recorded on board the packet-ship. The 
invention, in fact, so far as the theory and the essential de- 
vices were concerned, except alone the idea of suspending 
the wires upon posts, was completed on board the vessel. 
A few days after landing, the plan, now almost universally 
employed of supporting the wires on poles, was thought of 
by the inventor, though he still preferred his original con- 
ception of the buried tubes. 

The usual difficulty faced by inventors met Morse. He 
had no money with which to make experiments. Having no 
other resource, he went to Washington in 1838, arranged his 
apparatus there, exhibited its performance to as many mem- 
bers as he could induce to attend, and petitioned Congress 
for a grant of public money with which to make an experi- 
mental line between Washington and Baltimore, a distance 
of forty miles. It is weary work getting a grant of money 
from Congress for such a purpose; and it ought to be, for 
Congress has no constitutional right to give away the peo- 
ple's money to test such an invention. A committee reported 
upon it favorably, but nothing further was done during the 
session. 

He crossed the ocean to seek assistance in Europe. His 
efforts were fruitless. Neither in France nor in England 
could he obtain public or private encouragement. It seemed 
out of the sphere of government, and capitalists were 
strangely obtuse, not to the merits of the invention, but to 

176 






•eel 



iV 



Oa^ 



)o8Bfi 



the probability of its being profitable. They could not 
conceive that any considerable number of persons in a 
country would care to pay for the instantaneous transmission 
of news. Returning home disappointed, but not discour- 
aged, he renewed his efforts, winter after winter, using all 
the influence of his personal presence at Washington, and 
all his powers of argument and persuasion. 

March 3, 1843, the last day of the session, was 
come. He attended all day the House of Representatives, 
faintly hoping that something might be done for him before 
the final adjournment; but as the evening wore away, the 
pressure and confusion increased, and at length hope died 
within him and he left the Capitol. He walked sadly home 
and went to bed. 

But in the morning— the morning of March 4, 1843— 
he was startled with the announcement that the desired aid 
of Congress had been obtained in the midnight hour of the 
expiring session, and $30,000 placed at his disposal for his 
experimental essay between Washington and Baltimore. In 
1844 the work was completed, and demonstrated to the world 
the practicability and utility of the Morse system of electro- 
magnetic telegraphs. 

Services like these to the world happily were not 
allowed to pass unrecognized during the inventor's lifetime, 
though any honors or rewards bestowed upon such a bene- 
factor must needs have borne but a small proportion to the 
benefits his ingenuity conferred in the promotion of the ma- 
terial interest and the wealth of nations. 

At the suggestion of the Emperor Louis Napoleon, an 
assembly was held, composed of representatives of the chief 
European States, at which 400,000 francs were voted to 

177 



THE HALL OF FAME 



Mr. Morse, as a reward for his beneficent invention. Other 
national honors were conferred upon him; but the hourly 
and general use of his brilliant invention is the best tribute 
to his fame. 

In 1842 he laid the first submarine line of telegraphic 
wire in the harbor of New York, for which he received at 
the time in acknowledgment the gold medal of the American 
Institute ; and the first suggestion of an Atlantic Telegraph, 
it is said, was made by him in a letter addressed in August, 
1843, to the Secretary of the United States Treasury. In his 
later years, Mr. Morse resided in the city of New York, in 
the winter months ; passing the summer at his country seat 
on the Hudson River at Poughkeepsie. 

He continued to the close of his life to take an active 
interest in the liberal, artistical, and scientific interests of his 
time, traveling abroad, where he was always received with 
distinguished attention, and at home practising a liberal 
hospitality. 

New York, grateful for his service to science, in 1871, 
erected his statue in a conspicuous position in her great 
Central Park, in connection with which, it may be noted 
that his last appearance in any public act, was his unveiling 
the statue of Franklin, set up in the city by the side of the 
City Hall on Franklin's birth-day, in 1872. He did not long 
survive this ceremony, his death occurring at his residence 
in New York after a short illness, on the ensuing 2d of 
April. Every honor, public and private, was paid to his 
memory at his decease: after imposing funeral services at 
the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, of which he was 
a member, his remains were deposited in Greenwood Ceme- 
tery. 




HENRY WARD BEECHER, 64 Votes 
JAMES KENT, 65 Votes 



JOSEPH STORY, 64 Votes 
JOHN J. AUDUBON, 67 Votes (180) 




CHAPTER XVII. 
DAVID GLASCOE FARRAGUT 

" As for being prepared for defeat, I certainly am not. 
Any man who is prepared for defeat ivould be half de- 
feated before he commenced. I hope for success, shall do 
all in my pozver to secure it and trust to God for the rest." 
Inscription on the tablet erected to the memory of 
David Geascoe Farragut in the Hall oE Fame. 

DAVID GLASCOE FARRAGUT was a son of the sea, 
his father having been a saihng master of a schooner 
in the United States Navy before him. David was 
born in Knoxville, Tennessee, July 5, 1801. When he was 
eight years old his father purchased a farm on the Pascagoula 
R?ver. A year later, Commodore David Porter visited the 
plantation, and took a great fancy to David; so much so that 
he proposed to the father that he should practically adopt 
him, and bring him up, with the intention of making him an 
officer in the navy. 

The proposition was left to the boy's own decision ; and 
he made up his mind to accept it. When Porter sailed from 
New Orleans to the North, the plucky young lad bade fare- 
well to his father, and set sail with Mrs. Porter and his 
adopted parent. 

Young Farragut was placed at School at Chester, while 
181 








Commodore Porter remained at Washington. The Secre- 
tary of the Navy at the time, Paul Hamilton, was also 
greatly impressed with the boy, and promised him a midship- 
man's commission as soon as he reached the age of ten. As 
a matter of fact, he was only nine years and five months old 
when he received it. 

The first cruise the future admiral made was with 
Porter in the Essex, in the famous passage he made around 
Cape Horn, participating in that novel and remarkable 
career of naval conquest and adventure, which was termin- 
ated by the heroic action with two English ships, the Phoebe 
and the Cherub — one of the bloodiest on record — in the 
harbor of Valparaiso. Young Farragut, boy as he was, 
seems to have particularly distinguished himself in this 
engagement. His name is mentioned with honor in the 
official report of Com.modore Porter, as one of several mid- 
shipmen who " exerted themselves in the performance of 
their respective duties, and gave an earnest of their value to 
the service," adding that he was prevented by his youth from 
recommending him for promotion. He was then but thir- 
teen, and previously to the action had been engaged in con- 
ducting one of the English prizes, taken by the Essex, from 
Guayaquil to Valparaiso, against the strong remonstrance of 
the British captain, who objected to being under the orders 
of a boy ; but the boy insisted upon performing his duty, and 
was sustained in its performance. 

After this cruise, David was put back to school again 
at Chester. 

In April, 1815, he received orders to join the Independ- 
ence, Captain Bainbridge, then lying at Boston, and making 
preparations to sail with a squadron to the Mediterranean, as 

182 






FARRAGUT 



r!r,! 



war had been declared by our Government against Algiers. 
In company with the Congress and the Brie, the Independ- 
ence sailed, but arrived too late to enable Farragut to see 
active service. Commodore Decatur had already thrashed 
the pirates into submission, and had made peace. 

After Farragut's return to America in the fall, every- 
thing went smoothly and evenly for a year or two. He 
made three other cruises of considerable interest to him, but 
of little moment otherwise; and in the spring of 1819 he was 
once more in the Mediterranean, in the frigate Franklin, and 
was appointed from her to be the acting lieutenant of the 
brig Shark. In referring to this promotion, which took place 
while he was yet very young, Farragut writes : 

" One of the important events of my life was obtaining 
an acting lieutenancy when but little over eighteen years of 
age. This caused me to feel that I was now associated with 
men, on an equality, and must act with more circumspection. 
When I became first lieutenant, my duties were still more 
important ; for, in truth, I was really commander of the 
vessel, and yet I was not responsible — an anomalous position, 
which has spoiled some of our best officers. I consider it a 
great advantage to obtain command young, having observed, 
as a general thing, that persons who come into authority late 
in life shrink from responsibility, and often break down 
under its weight." 

In 1822 Farragut was ordered to sea in the sloop-of- 
war, John Adams, and during the ensuing cruise he gained 
a knowledge of the Gulf of Mexico and of the treacherous 
Gulf Coast that proved of infinite value in after years. 

For the next thirty years and more Farragut's life was 
of the ordinary naval officer's experience in time of peace. 

183 



jX,-.J,,. 





THE HALL OF FAME 



In i860, at the opening of the Civil War, his residence was 
at Norfolk, where he was rather in a critical position when, 
on the fall of Sumter, the leaders of the revolt in Virginia 
hurried the State out of the Union. His loyalty was well 
known, and this fact exposed him to great hatred on the part 
of the people. It was evident to him that his life was no 
longer safe in Virginia, and the day before the Navy Yard 
was burned, narrowly escaping imprisonment, he left with 
his family for the North. 

On his arrival in New York he placed his family in a 
cottage at Hastings on the Hudson, so as to be ready at the 
first opportunity to enter on active service. When the 
navy was re-inforced by the building of ships, and established 
on its new footing, in the first year of Lincoln's Administra- 
tion, a naval expedition was organized against New Orleans. 

By an order of Secretary Welles, dated January 20, 
1862, Captain Farragut was ordered to the Gulf of Mexico 
to the command of the Western Gulf Blockading Squadron, 
with such portions of which as could be spared, supported by 
a fleet of bomb vessels, under Commander D. D. Porter. He 
was further directed to " proceed up the Mississippi River, 
and reduce the defenses which guard the approaches to New 
Orleans, when you will appear off that city and take posses- 
sion of it, under the guns of your squadron, and hoist the 
^\merican flag therein, keeping possession until troops can 
be sent to you." 

Never was a programme of such magnitude more faith- 
fully and directly carried out. The necessary preparations, 
which involved many delays, having been completed, at the 
earliest possible moment in March, Captain Farragut entered 
the Mississippi in his flag-ship, the steamer Hartford, ac- 



FARRAGUT 



companied by the vessels of his squadron. He was presently 
followed by the mortar fleet of Porter, and everything was 
pushed forward to secure the object of the expedition. 

The bombardment of Fort Jackson was commenced 
on the 1 8th of April, by the mortar fleet, and kept up vigor- 
ously for several days, preparatory to the advance of the 
fleet. Before dawn, on the morning of the twenty-fourth, 
the way having been thus cleared, and a channel through 
the river obstructions opened. Captain Farragut, having 
made every provision which ingenuity could suggest, set his 
little squadron in motion for an attack upon and passage of 
the forts. 

The fleet advanced in two columns, the right to attack 
Fort St. Philip and the left Fort Jackson. The action which 
ensued was one of the most exciting, and, we may add, con- 
fused, in the annals of naval warfare. Passing chain bar- 
riers, encountering rafts, fire ships, portentous rams and 
gunboats, fires from the forts and batteries on shore, the 
officers of the fleet pushed on with an energy and presence of 
mind which nothing could thwart. 

In the perils of the day, the flagship was not the least 
exposed and endangered. " I discovered," says Captain 
Farragut, in his report, " a fire-raft coming down upon us, 
and in attempting to avoid it, ran the ship on shore, and the 
ram Manassas, which I had not seen, lay on the opposite 
of it, and pushed it down upon us. Our ship was soon on 
fire half way up to her tops ; but we backed off, and through 
the good organization of our fire department, and the great 
exertions of Captain Wainwright and his first lieutenant, 
officers and crew, the fire was extinguished. 

" In the meantime our battery was never silent, but 
185 



?«2) 



THE HALL OF FAME 






poured its missiles of death into Fort St. Philip, opposite 
to which we had got by this time, and it was silenced, with 
the exception of a gun now and then. By this time the 
enemy's gun-boats, some thirteen in number, besides two 
iron-clad rams, the Manassas and Louisiana, had become 
more visible. We took them in hand, and, in the course of 
a short time, destroyed eleven of them. We were now 
fairly past the forts, and the victory was ours ; but still here 
and there a gun-boat making resistance. ... It was a 
kind of guerrilla ; they were fighting in all directions." 

Leaving Commander Porter to receive the surrender of 
the forts, and directing General Butler, with his troops of 
the land forces, to follow, Captain Farragut, with a portion 
of his fleet, proceeded up to New Orleans, witnessing, as he 
approached the city, the enormous destruction of property 
in cotton-loaded ships on fire, and other signs of devastation 
on the river. The forts in the immediate vicinity of the 
city were silenced, and on the morning of the 25th, as 
the fleet came up, the levee, in the words of Captain Farra- 
gut, " was one scene of desolation ; ships, steamers, cotton, 
coal, etc., all in one common blaze, and our ingenuity being 
much taxed to avoid the floating conflagration." In the 
midst of this wild scene of destruction, the surrender of 
New Orleans was demanded, and after some parley, the 
American flag was, on the 26th hoisted on the Custom- 
house, and the Louisiana State flag hauled down from 
the City Hall. 

More than a year of arduous labor for the land and 
naval forces of the Upper and Lower Mississippi remained 
before the possession of that river was secured to the Union. 
In these active operations Flag-Officer Farragut — he was 

186 






FARRAGUT 






appointed Rear- Admiral, on the creation by Congress of this 
highest rank in the navy, in the summer of 1862 — with his 
flag-ship, the Hartford, was conspicuous. In the campaigns 
of two seasons on the river, from New Orleans to Vicks- 
burg, ending with the surrender in July, 1863, ^^ ^^e latter 
long-defended stronghold and Port Hudson, the Hartford 
was constantly in active service. 

The attack on Mobile, in August, 1864, crowned the 
long series of victories which compose the record of Ad- 
miral Farragut. The results of this engagement were the 
destruction of the Confederate fleet, the capture of the iron- 
clad ram Tennessee, and the surrender of all the forts in the 
harbor, with twenty-six hundred prisoners. 

As a reward for this brilliant achievement, and for his 
other services, the rank of Vice-Admiral, corresponding to 
Lieutenant-General in the army, was created by Congress 
and conferred upon Admiral Farragut. 

Soon after this, at his request, he was relieved from 
active service, and was called to Washington, where he 
remained, directing the movements of the navy till the end 
of the war. 

In 1867-8, Admiral Farragut visited the chief ports of 
Europe in the flag-ship Franklin, and was received with 
distinguished attention by the sovereigns and courts of all 
the leading powers. An illustrated narrative of his tour was 
pubHshed. He did not long survive his return. He died at 
Portsmouth, N. H., August 14, 1870. His remains were 
brought to the city of New York for interment, at the close 
of the following month, and, attended by President Grant, 
and with every honor the Republic could bestow, were 
deposited in the cemetery at Woodlawn. 

187 




CHAPTER XVIII 
HENRY CLAY 





" That patriotism which, catching its inspiration from 
the immortal God, animates and prompts to deeds of self- 
sacrifice, of valor, of devotion and of death itself, that is 
public virtue, that is the siiblimest of all public virtues." 
Inscription on the tablet erected to the memory 
oE Henry Clay in the Hall oe Fame. 

ENRY CLAY was born April 12, 1777, in Hanover 
County, Virginia. His father, the Rev. John Clay, 
was a native Virginian and a Baptist preacher. He 
died when the boy was only five years old, just as the 
Revolutionary War was coming to a close in Virginia. The 
family were very poor, and Henry used to be the mill boy, 
riding bareback on a pony guided by a rope bridle, with a 
bag of corn thrown across the pony in front of him, return- 
ing again in the evening with a bag of meal instead. The 
neighbors along the road called him " The Mill Boy of the 
Slashes," as his home was in a swampy region called the 
Slashes. 

At the age of fourteen, he was placed in a retail store, 
kept by Mr. Richard Denny, near the market-house in the 
city of Richmond. He remained here till the next year 
(1792), when he was transferred to the office of the clerk 




of the High Court of Chancery, Mr. Peter Tinsley. There 
he became acquainted with the venerable Chancellor Wythe, 
attracted his friendly attention, and enjoyed the benefit of 
his instruction and conversation. The chancellor being un- 
able to write well, in consequence of the gout or rheumatism 
in his right thumb, bethought himself of employing his young 
friend as an amanuensis. This was a fortunate circumstance 
for the fatherless boy. His attention was thus called to the 
structure of sentences, as he wrote them down from the 
dictation of his employer; and a taste for the study of 
grammar was created which was noticed and encouraged by 
the chancellor, upon whose recommendation he read Harris' 
Hermes, Tooke's Diversions of Piirley, Bishop Lowth's 
Grammar, and other similar works. 

For his handwriting, which is still remarkably neat and 
regular, Mr. Clay was chiefly indebted to Mr. Tinsley. 
Chancellor Wythe was devoted to the study of Greek. He 
was at one time occupied in preparing reports of his de- 
cisions, and commenting upon those of the Court of Appeals, 
by which some of his were reversed; and in this work he 
was assisted by his amanuensis. After the reports were 
published, he sent copies to Mr. Jefferson, John Adams, 
Samuel Adams, and others. In these copies he employed 
Henry Clay to copy particular passages from Greek authors, 
to whom reference had been made. Not understanding a 
single Greek character, the young copyist had to transcribe 
by imitation letter after letter. 

Leaving the office of Mr. Tinsley the latter part of 1796, 
he went to reside with the late Robert Brooke, Esq., the 
Attorney-General, formerly Governor of Virginia. His only 
regular study of the law was during the year 1797, that he 




lived with Mr. Brooke ; but it was impossible that he should 
not, in the daily scenes he witnessed, and in the presence of 
the eminent men whom he so often heard and saw, be in the 
way of gathering much valuable legal information. During 
his residence of six or seven years in Richmond, he became 
acquainted with all or most of the eminent Virginians of the 
period who lived in that city, or were in the habit of resort- 
ing to it — wtili Edmund Pendleton, Spencer Roane, Chief- 
Justice Marshall, Bushrod Washington, Wickham, Call, 
Copeland, etc. On two occasions, he had the good fortune 
to hear Patrick Henry — once, before the Circuit Court of the 
United States for the Virginia district, on the question of 
the payment of the British debts ; and again before the House 
of Delegates of Virginia, on the claim of the supernumerary 
officers in the service of the State during the Revolutionary 
War. Mr. Clay remembered that remarkable man, his ap- 
pearance and his manner, distinctly. The impression of his 
eloquent powers that remained on his mind was, that their 
charm consisted mainly in one of the finest voices ever heard, 
in his graceful gesticulation, and the variety and force of ex- 
pression which he exhibited in his face. 

Henry Clay quitted Richmond in November, 1797, his 
eldest brother having died while he yet resided in that city. 
Bearing a license from the judges of the Virginia Court of 
Appeals to practice law, he established himself in Lexington, 
Kentucky. He was without patrons, without the counten- 
ance of influential friends, and destitute of the means of pay- 
ing his weekly board. " I remember," says he, in his speech 
of June, 1842, at Lexington, " how comfortable I thought 
I should be, if I could make iioo Virginia money per year; 
and with what delight I received the first fifteen-shilling fee. 

190 



^ 




''^< 






ai»-:^ 



i 




CLAY 



My hopes were more than realized. I immediately rushed 
into a lucrative practice." 

Henry Clay was elected to the Kentucky Legislature in 
1803, and in 1806 was elected to the United States Senate to 
fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of the Hon. John 
Adair. The fraction of a term to which he was elected 
amounted to only a single session. In the summer of 1807 
he was again elected to the Legislature, and again in 1809 
was elected to the United States Senate, to supply a vacancy 
occasioned by the resignation of Hon. Buckner Thurston, 
whose term wanted two years of its completion. From that 
time on his life is a part of the history of the United States. 

The cause of Henry Clay's transference from the 
Senate in 181 1 to the House of Representatives, was his own 
preference, at the time, of a seat in the popular branch. His 
immediate election as Speaker was, under the circumstances, 
a rare honor, and one never, before or since, conferred on a 
new member. He was chosen Speaker on the first ballot, 
and at the next Congress the honor was repeated, and this 
was followed on three other occasions in the House of Repre- 
sentatives. His apt, ready, graceful talents, his prompt 
courtesy, and readiness in all parliamentary duties, made him 
an exceedingly popular man in that office. His views in 
reference to the vindication of the country by a spirited 
foreign policy, were well understood, and he carried them out 
in his appointment of the committee on Foreign Relations, 
of which Porter, of New York, was placed at the head, and 
John C. Calhoun, who followed him on his retirement, 
second. 

Mr. Clay spoke earnestly in favor of the increase of the 
army and navy, and advocated the new Embargo as " a 

191 



'fW*i 




i^m} 



THE HALL OF FAME 



direct precursor of war." He was one of the young and 
fiery spirits of the country in the House — a leader with Cal- 
houn — in vindicating and stimulating the declaration of war, 
and its earnest prosecution. War was declared in June, and, 
shortly after. Congress adjourned. At its next session Mr. 
Clay, on the 8th of January, 1813, delivered a speech in 
defense of the new army bill, which has been considered one 
of his most eloquent efforts. Ufihappily it is imperfectly 
reported, but enough remains to mark his mastery of the 
occasion. 

Having thus so greatly distinguished himself in the 
prosecution of the war, when a prospect of peace was 
opened, through the friendly assistance of the Russian 
government, he was chosen envoy extraordinary, in con- 
junction with Mr. Jonathan Russell, to join his confederates, 
Messrs. Gallatin, Bayard and Adams, who were already in 
Europe, in the negotiations. He accepted this duty, took 
leave of the House as speaker in an appropriate address, in 
January, 1814, sailed from New York immediately after, 
and was with his colleagues at Ghent at the opening of 
negotiations. 

Mr. Clay was in London when the battle of Waterloo 
was fought, and witnessed the illuminations, bonfires, and 
rejoicings, to which it gave rise. For a day or two, it was a 
matter of great uncertainty what had become of Napoleon. 
During this interval of anxious suspense, Mr. Clay dined at 
Lord Castlereagh's with the American ministers, Messrs. 
Adams and Gallatin, and the British ministry. Bonaparte's 
flight and probable place of refuge became the topics of 
conversation. Among other conjectures, it was suggested 
that he might have gone to the United States; and Lord 

192 



g5,-*<t> 



^^^1^^ 



d^ 



CLAY 




Liverpool, addressing Mr. Clay, asked: " If he goes there, 
will he not give you a good deal of trouble ? " " Not the 
least, my lord," replied Mr. Clay, with his habitual prompti- 
tude ; " we shall be very glad to receive him ; we would treat 
him with all hospitality, and very soon make of him a good 
Democrat." 

The reply produced a very hearty peal of laughter from 
the whole company. 

The growing popularity of Henry Clay early marked 
him as a future candidate for the Presidency. In 1824, John 
Quincy Adams, and Crawford, of Georgia, Andrew Jackson 
and Henry Clay were the candidates. The electoral vote 
gave 99 for Jackson ; 84 for Adams ; 41 for Crawford and 37 
for Clay. Clay received the votes of Ohio, Missouri, Ken- 
tucky, and four from New York. No one having the neces- 
sary majority, the choice, according to the provision of the 
Constitution, was to be made by the House of Representa- 
tives from the three highest. Mr. Clay was consequently 
excluded, but he held the control of the election in the vote 
of Kentucky, which was cast for Adams, and consequently 
against Jackson, Crawford being out of the race by a fatal 
illness. This preference of Adams by Clay was considered a 
violation of party allegiance by his Democratic friends, and 
naturally rendered him odious to the disappointed supporters 
of Jackson, whose principle, controlled by the fiery will of 
their chieftain, was always to be unsparing to their political 
opponents. This intensified when he accepted the place of 
Secretary of State under Adams. 

This enmity came to a serious personal issue in the 
second year of Adams' administration. Henry Clay, as 
Secretary of State, had an opportunity in accordance with 

193 




ii 



THE HALL OF FAME 




his old views in advocacy of the independence of the South 
American republics, to forward his idea of a great cis- 
Atlantic American policy. He appointed a delegation to 
the Congress of Panama, which was invited by the Mexican 
and Central American representatives at Washington. 

John Randolph, whose genius had often been in oppo- 
sition to Mr. Clay, opposed the measure with the full force 
of his argument and invective. In a speech in the Senate he 
went so far as to throw out an intimation that the " invita- 
tion " to action proceeded from the office of the Secretary 
of State, and, in an allusion of great bitterness, denounced 
the union of Adams and Clay as a " coalition of Blifil and 
Black George, a combination, unheard of till then, of the 
puritan with the blackleg." The venom of the attack, point- 
ing a charge of fraud with such cunning emphasis, brought 
from Mr. Clay a challenge. It was accepted by Randolph, 
and the duel was fought on the banks of the Potomac. The 
first fire of neither took effect, though both shots were well 
aimed. At the second, Mr. Clay's bullet pierced his an- 
tagonist's coat. Randolph, as he had all along intended, 
though he was diverted from this course in the first instance, 
fired his pistol in the air, upon which Mr. Clay advanced 
with great emotion, exclaiming, " I trust in God, my dear 
sir, you are untouched ; after what has occurred, I would not 
have harmed you for a thousand worlds." It was a duel 
which should not have been fought ; there was no hate be- 
tween two such chivalrous opponents, who understood one 
another's better qualities ; and the joy at the harmless ter- 
mination of the affair was sincere on both sides. 

Years after, when Randolph was about leaving Wash- 
ington for the last time, just before his death, he was brought 

194 


















m 






to the Senate. " I have come," he said, as he was helped to 
a seat while Clay was speaking, " to hear that voice," The 
courtesy, burying long years of political controversy, was 
met at the conclusion of his remarks with his accustomed 
magnanimity by the orator. ** Mr. Randolph, I hope you 
are better, sir," he said, as he approached him. " No, sir," 
was the reply ; " I am a dying man, and I came here ex- 
pressly to have this interview with you." The sun of that 
brilliant existence, a checkered day of darkness and splendor, 
went not down upon his wrath. 

It was the spring of 1833 when this memorable incident 
occurred, the period when Mr. Clay was advocating the 
compromise of the tariff, to save the country from what ap- 
peared to him impending civil war. Randolph, in one of his 
county Virginia speeches, had previously pointed to the 
Kentucky orator for this service. " There is one man," said 
he, " and one man only, who can save this Union: that man 
is Henry Clay. I know he has the power ; I believe he will 
be found to have the patriotism and firmness equal to the 
occasion." 

As the next Presidential election drew near, it was 
known in advance that Andrew Jackson must win by a large 
majority. The contest w^as between him and Henry Clay, 
the latter receiving out of two hundred and eighty-eight, but 
forty-nine votes — those of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, 
Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland and Kentucky. 

In 1835 Mr. Clay was enabled to render a signal service 
to the country by the interposition of his report as chairman 
of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, checking the prompt 
measures of Jackson for the recovery of the debt due from 
France, and giving that nation an opportunity of reconsider- 

195 





THE HALL OF FAME 




ing its legislation — a delay which resulted in the payment of 
the debt, in place of a fierce and expensive war. A third 
time did Mr. Clay thus perform the part in Congress, of the 
great pacificator. 

On the conclusion of his senatorial term he was again 
chosen, and continued in office to the completion of the new 
period in 1842. Harrison meanwhile had come into office, 
having received the nomination of the Harrisburg Conven- 
tion over Clay, who was a popular candidate, and Mr. Tyler 
had, in a short month, fallen heir to the Presidency. The 
Whig party, led by Clay, was for a time in the ascendant. 
but its measures were steadily resisted by the new President. 

In 1844 Clay was nominated at Baltimore by the Demo- 
cratic Convention. Mr. Polk was arrayed in opposition to 
him on the Texas Annexation question, and he was a third 
time defeated. His course was a manly one. He had spoken 
out frankly on the Texas issue, as involving a war with 
Mexico, and his prediction came to pass. It was on this 
occasion that he had the proud satisfaction of uttering this 
immortal sentence, " I would rather be right than President." 
The vote stood 170 for Mr. Polk and 105 for Clay. In 1848 
he was again before the Convention, and was very strong on 
the first ballot, but General Taylor, coming back with mili- 
tary laurels, swept everything before him. 

Mr. Clay, during this time, was living in comparative 
retirement at Ashland, engaged in the occasional practice of 
his profession, and receiving the visits of his friends. He 
had a singular proof of their kindness in the unexpected 
payment of a mortgage on his estate. It became known that 
he was involved by the loan of his name. A subscription 
was taken up in the chief Atlantic cities, and at New Or- 

196 



CLAY 



leans, and the full amount — more than twenty-five thousand 
dollars — deposited to his credit in the Northern Bank of 
Kentucky. Other evidences of kindness poured in upon 
him, consolatory to his years and trials — for he was now to 
reap the bitter fruit of the Mexican war, certainly not of his 
planting, in the death of his son Henry, at the battle of 
Buena Vista. About this time, carrying out a resolve pre- 
viously formed, he attached himself to the Episcopal church, 
was baptized and confirmed, and partook of the sacrament. 

In 1849, having been elected for the full term, he was 
seated again in the Senate of the United States. His Com- 
promise Resolutions of 1850, touching the new territorial 
questions arising out of the Mexican war, were the last great 
parliamentary efforts of his career. 

In the Congress of i850-'5i, under the Presidency of 
Mr, Fillmore, Mr. Clay was in his seat, battling for his old 
issues of the tariff and internal improvements. In the fol- 
lowing year he returned once more to the Senate, too ill and 
enfeebled to take any active part in its proceedings. 

The consumption which was wearing out his life soon 
confined him to his room, where his last act partaking of a 
public nature was his reception of the Hungarian patriot, 
Kossuth. He complimented the zealous orator on his fas- 
cinating eloquence, " fearing," he said, " to come under its 
influence, lest his faith might be shaken in some principles in 
regard to the foreign policy of this government, which he 
had long and constantly cherished." The principles which 
he feared might be endangered were those recommended by 
Washington's Farewell Address, advising no interference 
beyond the influence of our example with the internal diffi- 
culties of Europe. " Far better," he said, " is it for our- 

197 



Ji??v^;>N 



THE HALL OF FAME 




selves, for Hungary, and for the cause of liberty, that, ad- 
hering to our wise, pacific system, and avoiding the distant 
wars of Europe, we should keep our lamp burning brightly 
on this western shore, as a light to all nations, than to 
hazard its utter extinction amid the ruins of fallen or falling 
republics in Europe." 

The brief remaining record is of the sick chamber, the 
wasting of bodily Strength, the solicitude of friends, the min- 
istrations of religion, of which this noble-hearted man, ac- 
customed to rule Senates and control the policy of the 
nation, was as penitent, resigned, humble a participant as 
any in the thronged myriads whom the eloquence of his 
voice had ever reached. He died, the aged patriot, at the 
full age of seventy-five, at the National Hotel of Washing- 
ton, " with perfect composure, without a groan or struggle," 
June 29, 1852. 





JOHN ADAMS, 62 Votes 
GILBERT CHARLES STUART, 52 Votes 



WILLIAM E. CHANNING, 58 Votes 
ASA GRAY, 51 Votes 



(200) 





CHAPTER XIX. 
GEORGE PEABODY 

"Looking forivard beyond my stay on earth, I see our 
country becoming richer and more pozvcrful—-but to make 
her prosperity more than superficial, her moral and intel- 
lectual development should keep pace with her material 
growth." Inscription on the; tablet erected to the 
MEMORY OF George Peabody in the Hall oe Fame. 

GEORGE PEABODY, the famous merchant and the 
eminent philanthropist, was born in South Danvers, 
now for many years named in his honor, Peabody, 
Massachusetts, February i8, 1795. He attended the village 
school as soon as he was old enough to go until he was eleven 
years old, when he was hired as a helper in a grocery store. 
Luckily the proprietor was a good man, who regarded the 
boy with afifection, and gave him such ideas of business 
honor and wise business conduct that his association was of 
great value to Peabody, not only in his early life, but 
during his entire career. 

In after years, George Peabody was always ready to 
ascribe the remarkable success of his business life to the 
sound New England training he received in his boyhood. 
" It was," he wrote forty-five years after, when the people 
of Danvers were having some anniversary celebration, " as 

201 



^<li 



THE HALL OF FAME 




many ot you know, in a very humble house, in the South 
Parish that I was born, and from the common schools of that 
Parish, such as they were, in 1803 to 1807, I obtained the 
limited education my parents' means could afford ; but to the 
principles there inculcated in childhood and early youth, I 
owe much of the foundations for such success as heaven has 
been pleased to grant me during a long business life." 

Two characteristic stories of young Peabody's energy 
and activity, are related by one of his biographers : 

It appears that among other duties devolving upon the 
assistant of Mr. Proctor, was that of the manufacture of 
whips ; and Air. Proctor had often extolled the dexterity 
of one Life Smith, a man previously in his employ, who in 
one day had made six dozen of these same whips, which was 
deemed a brilliant specimen of dispatch. 

This was enough to stimulate George to action, who, 
though but a boy of eleven years, had enough emulation to 
compete with his predecessor, who was a man. He accord- 
ingly one day, during the absence of Mr. Proctor, set to 
work heart and hands, and reared a glorious pile of eight 
dozen whips, which were proudly displayed to the astonished 
gaze of good Mr. Proctor on his return home in the evening. 
Nor was this the first time George had surprised his friends 
by a display of energetic application rarely met with in one 
so young, and when met with, always indicative of rare 
achievements in after life. During the year 1805, he passed 
some time with his grandparents, who resided at Thetford, 
Vermont. 

While here, his grandfather wished to have a hill-side 
cleared, which was overgrown with sumac trees. This 
hill-side included many acres, and the trees numbered some 

202 




w\ 



m 



'% 

^^^/ 



hundreds. George undertook to cut them down, and his 
grandfather gave him a week for the task. At early morn- 
ing, forth sallied George, axe in hand, and by the evening 
of the same day the task was accomplished. The sun went 
down, and left not a sumac standing to exult over its fallen 
companions. 

Other incidents are related of his perseverance in boy- 
hood; one in particular, of his collecting the small sum 
of two dollars due his grandfather by an incorrigible debtor, 
whose aversion to payment he overcame by an unintermitted 
series of applications during two months. 

Such anecdotes as these may be trifling in themselves, 
but as the first terms of a geometrical progression, ending 
in the development of a colossal fortune with millions at the 
disposal of the possessor, freely expended in promoting the 
welfare of the race, they are of pregnant vitality. 

The second step in Mr. Peabody's mercantile career was 
his employment, in 1811, in the dry-goods store of his eldest 
brother, who was just setting up business at Newburyport, 
Massachusetts. This was speedily brought to a close by a 
great fire at the place, which caused the failure of the pro- 
prietor. It was a dull time for commercial enterprise in 
New England in those days of the Embargo, preliminary to 
the war with Great Britain ; and we find young Peabody, at 
the age of seventeen, an orphan by the sudden death of his 
father, leaving his native State in company with a bankrupt 
uncle, John Peabody, to seek his fortune in another region. 

For the next two years he continued in business with 
his uncle at Georgetown, near Washington, and on reaching 
the age of nineteen he entered into a partnership with Mr. 
Elisha Riggs, of New York City, in the dry-goods business. 

203 



THE HALL OF FAME 



In 1815 the house of Riggs and Peabody was removed to 
Baltimore, and other houses were estabUshed in Philadelphia 
and New York in 1822. 

In 1829 Elisha Riggs retired from the firm; but his 
nephew, Samuel Riggs remained, Mr. Peabody becoming the 
senior partner in the firm of Peabody, Riggs & Company. 
He fairly attained this position by business fidelity and activ- 
ity ; laboring incessantly for the house, and deservedly shar- 
ing its rising fortunes. He traveled much in Maryland and 
Virginia, and, in 1827, visited England for the first time, for 
the purchase of goods. During the next ten years, he oc- 
casionally repeated this voyage for a like object, and in 1837, 
made his residence permanently in England. A few years 
after, in 1843, ^^ retired from the firm of Peabody, Riggs 
& Company and established himself in London at the head 
of the well-known banking and commercial house of Pea- 
body & Company. 

In 1848, Mr. Peabody was brought into public notice in 
the United States by the thanks of the Legislature of the 
State of Maryland, accorded him for his generous services 
in negotiating an important loan, which enabled the State 
to maintain its credit at a period of great financial embar- 
rassment. In the words of the joint resolution of the two 
Houses of the Legislature recording the act : 

"Whereas, Mr. George Peabody, a citizen of Maryland, 
now resident in London, was appointed one of the three 
commissioners, under the act of Assembly of Eighteen 
Hundred and Thirty-five, to negotiate a loan for this State, 
and after performing the duties assigned him, refused to 
apply for the compensation allowed by the provisions of that 
act, because he was unwilling to add to the burthens of the 

204 



s 


^m 


PEABODY 






^^ 


^^^^ 


^^^^^^^S^ 








State, at a time when she was overwhelmed with the weight 
of her obhgations ; and whereas, since the credit of the State 
has been restored, he has voluntarily relinquished all claim 
for the compensation due to him for his services, expressing 
himself fully paid by the gratification of seeing the State 
free from reproach in the eyes of the world. Be it unani- 
mously resolved, by the General Assembly of Maryland, that 
the record of such disinterested zeal is higher praise than any 
that eloquence could bestow, and that this Legislature is 
therefore content with tendering the thanks of the State to 
Mr. Peabody for his generous devotion to the interests and 
honor of Maryland." 

These resolutions, by further direction of the Legisla- 
ture, were communicated to Mr. Peabody by the Governor of 
the State, the Hon. Philip J. Thomas, who added: "In- 
stances of such devotion on the part of a citizen to the public 
welfare are of rare occurrence, and merit the highest distinc- 
tions which a Commonwealth can bestow. To one whose 
actions are the result of impulses so noble and self-sacrific- 
ing, next to the approval of his own conscience, no homage 
can be more acceptable than the meed of a people's gratitude, 
no recompense so grateful as the assurance of a complete 
realization of those objects and ends whose attainment has 
been regarded of higher value than mere personal conve- 
nience or pecuniary consideration." 

In 1 85 1, Mr. Peabody, whose influence had always 
been exerted in the promotion of kindly feeling between the 
people of England and his country, celebrated the American 
national anniversary of independence by a splendid enter- 
tainment at his expense, at Willis' Rooms, in London, to 
which he invited a distinguished company of the best Eng- 

20s 



THE HALL OF FAME 



lish society, and his countrymen who were then in the me- 
tropolis. 

This pecuhar celebration of the day was undertaken, 
in the words of a London journalist, " for the avowed pur- 
pose of showing that all hostile feeling, in regard to the 
occurrences which it calls to mind, has ceased to have place 
in the breasts of the citizens of either of the two great Anglo- 
Saxon nations, and that there is no longer anything to 
prevent them meeting together on that day, or on any other 
occasion, in perfect harmony and brotherhood." 

The affair was eminently successful ; the ball-room, in 
which the celebration was held, was appropriately decorated 
with the blended flags of England and the United States, and 
the portraits of Queen Victoria and of Washington. The 
entertainment opened with a concert, in which the best talent 
of the day was employed, followed by dancing and a costly 
supper. It was attended by a brilliant company, the Duke 
of Wellington being the honored guest of the evening. 
Lord Granville, subsequently referring to the fete, character- 
ized it "as marking an auspicious epoch in the history of 
international feeling as between England and America." 

In June, 1852, the Centennial Anniversary of the separ- 
ation of Mr. Peabody's native town of Dan vers from Salem, 
was celebrated by the inhabitants. To the gathering on this 
occasion, Mr. Peabody was invited. He replied, in a char- 
acteristic letter, to his friends in the town, regretting that he 
could not be present, and enclosing a sealed envelope not to 
be opened until the day of Celebration, in which was con- 
tained the money for the building of the Peabody Institute in 
that town. 

The corner-stone of the " Peabody Institute," as it 
206 



PEABODY 




was subsequently called, for which provision was thus made, 
was laid, with appropriate ceremonies, on the 20th of 
August, 1853. On the 29th of September, 1854, it was for- 
mally dedicated, and an address delivered by the Hon. 
Rufus Choate, who paid a generous tribute to the merits of 
the founder. 

" I honor and love him," said Choate, on this occasion, 
in a discourse heightened by the generous enthusiasm of his 
nature, as he dwelt on topics of mental culture and learning, 
" not merely that his energy, sense, and integrity have raised 
him from a poor boy — waiting in that shop yonder — to be 
a guest, as Curran gracefully expressed it, at the table of 
princes ; to spread a table for the entertainment of princes — 
not merely because the brilliant professional career which 
has given him a position so commanding in the mercantile 
and social circles of the commercial capital of the world, has 
left him as completely American — the heart as wholly un- 
traveled — as when he first stepped on the shore of England 
to seek his fortune, sighing to think that the ocean rolled 
between him and home ; jealous of honor ; wakeful to our in- 
terests ; helping his country, not by swagger and vulgarity, 
but by recommending her credit ; vindicating her title to be 
trusted on the exchange of nations ; squandering himself in 
hospitalities to her citizens — a man of deeds, not of words 
— not for these merely I love and honor him, but because his 
nature is affectionate and unsophisticated still ; because his 
memory comes over so lovingly to this sweet Argos ; to the 
schoolroom of his childhood ; to the old shop and kind 
master, and the graves of his father and mother; and be- 
cause he has had the sagacity and the character to indulge 
these unextinguished affections in a gift — not of vanity and 

207 



T?^ra?>^. 



THE HALL OF FAME 




ostentation — but of supreme and durable utility. With how 
true and rational a satisfaction might he permit one part o^ 
the charitable rich man's epitaph to be written on his grave- 
stone : ' What I spent I had ; what I kept I lost ; what I 
gave away remains with me.' 

" Other instances of Mr. Peabody's ample liberality 
might be recorded in further benefactions to the town, in his 
aid to the Grinnell Arctic Expedition, and other public-spirit- 
ed enterprises ; but that which by its extent and importance 
has most attracted the attention of the world, is his munificent 
gift to the city of London, of two hundred and fifty thousand 
pounds sterling, more than a million and a half of dollars 
in our present currency, for the building and establishment 
of various extensive buildings, to be erected in suitable 
situations, and appropriated as lodging houses for poor and 
JLl-^il., respectable inhabitants, heretofore struggling without the 
means of obtaining the decencies of life in squalid and 
wretched abodes, which all the sanitary regulations of the 
metropolis seemed unable to regulate or improve." 

In 1866, Mr. Peabody revisited the United States and 
renewed his gifts to the educational and philanthropic in- 
stitutions of the country on an unprecedented scale. To the 
" Peabody Institute," which he had founded at Danvers, he 
gave an additional hundred thousand dollars, and made pro- 
vision for the permanent deposit in its gallery of the minia- 
ture painting of Victoria, which was forwarded to him 
while he remained in the country. To the scientific de- 
partments of Yale College he gave one hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars. He gave funds for the building of a 
memorial Congregational Church, as a monument to the 
memory of his mother, in the vicinity of his birthplace. To 

208 








.^>J^ 



PEABODY 



the Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts, he gave 
twenty-five thousand dollars, for the purpose of endowing a 
Chair of Mathematics and the Natural Sciences. 

Other examples of his liberality to public institutions 
might be given. One which crowned the whole must not be 
omitted. It was a direct gift to the nation of a million of 
dollars, and the foundation of a system of popular school 
education in the Southern States, to be conducted by a 
bureau of eminent citizens, chosen by the donor. 

This munificent gift to the nation was appropriately 
recognized by an Act of Congress, voting to the donor a 
gold medal bearing on one side his portrait and on the other 
the inscription : " The People of the United States to George 
Peabody, in acknowledgment of his beneficent promotion of 
universal education." 

As a further personal memorial of his extraordinary 
beneficence in England, a subscription was set on foot, 
headed by the Prince of Wales, for the erection of a statue 
of Mr. Peabody, to be placed near the Royal Exchange in 
London. It was executed in bronze, and presented to the 
public with appropriate ceremonies, in the summer of 1869. 
At this time Mr. Peabody was again in the United States, 
suffering from impaired health. 

His travels through the country from Massachusetts to 
Virginia were marked as heretofore by his liberal donations 
to public objects. He increased the Southern Educational 
Fund by another million of dollars, and made other addi- 
tions to the liberal institutions which he had founded. In 
the autumn he returned to England much enfeebled. He 
did not long survive, his death occurring at his residence in 
London on the night of November 4, 1869. 

209 



^ 






THE HALL OF FAME 



CHAPTER XX. 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 

"Living in solitude till the fullness of time, I still kept 
the deiv of my youth and the freshness of my heart." 
Inscription on the table;t erected to the memory of 
Nathaniel Hawthorne in the Haee oe Fame. 

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE was born in the year 
1804, at Salem, Massachusetts. His father, who was 
a sea-captain and a lover of books, died when 
Nathaniel was very small. There were two other children, 
and the mother, who was but twenty-eight years old at the 
time of her husband's death, shut herself up in her room as 
a hermit for the most of the time for the next forty years. 
Hawthorne was the only boy, and though his mother loved 
him devotedly, her retired habits caused him to grow up a 
very lonely child. His first teacher was Dr. Worcester, the 
compiler of the dictionary bearing his name. 

When he was nine years old, Hawthorne was lamed in 
an accident in a game of bat and ball, which threatened for 
three years to be permanent. Annie Fields, in her biography 
of Hawthorne, thinks it was with some thought of recover- 
ing the boy's perfect strength at this time that the family 
went away far into the wilderness, to a place owned by his 
uncle, near Raymond, on Sebago Lake. 



HAWTHORNE 



/oa^f 



It was of the life at Sebago that Hawthorne chiefly 
loved to speak in his later days. His mother and sisters en- 
joyed the freedom and the solitude apparently as well as he ; 
for, when his mother determined to send him back to Salem 
to prepare for college, the family remained behind until 1820, 
the year previous to Hawthorne's entrance into Bowdoin 
College. 

" The immense State of Maine, in the year 1818," writes 
Henry James, " must have had an even more magnificently 
natural character than it possesses at the present day ; and the 
uncle's dwelling, in consequence of being in a little smarter 
style than the primitive structures that surrounded it, was 
known by the villagers as ' Manning's Folly.' " 

Hawthorne spoke of the place to a friend later in life 
as the one where " I first got my cursed habits of solitude;" 
but however the loveliness of nature may have confirmed 
him in the power of remote living, we have seen how he had 
been accustomed to live apart from men in a way much more 
difficult to support. " I lived," he said, " in Maine, like a bird 
of the air, so perfect was the freedom I enjoyed." 

In 1819, when he was in Salem, he wrote to his mother, 
while she was still in this country paradise : 

" I dreamed the other night that I was walking by the 
Sebago, and, when I awoke, was so angry at finding it all a 
delusion, that I gave Uncle Robert (who sleeps with me) 
a most horrible kick. I don't read so much now as I did, 
because I am more taken up in studying. I am quite recon- 
ciled to going to college, since I am to spend the vacations 
with you. Yet four years of the best part of my life is a 
great deal to throw away. I have not yet concluded what 
profession I shall have. The being a minister is, of course, 

213 



li^ 



THE HALL OF FAME ^ 



l^M 



out of the question. I should not think that even you could 
desire to choose so dull a way of life. Oh, no, mother, I 
was not born to vegetate forever in one place, and to live 
and die as calm and as tranquil as — a puddle of water. As 
to lawyers, there are so many of them already that one-half 
of them (upon a moderate calculation) are in a state of 
actual starvation. A physician, then, seems to be * Hob- 
son's choice ' ; but yet I should not like to live by the diseases 
and infirmities of my fellow creatures. And it would weigh 
very heavily on my conscience, in the course of my practice, 
if I should chance to send any unlucky patient ad inferum, 
which, being interpreted, is ' to the realms below.' 

" Oh that I were rich enough to live without a profes- 
sion ! What do you think of my becoming an author, and 
relying for support upon my pen? Indeed, I think the 
illegibility of my handwriting is very author-like. How 
proud you would be to see my works praised by the re- 
viewers, as equal to the proudest productions of the scrib- 
bling sons of John Bull ! But authors are always poor 
devils, and therefore Satan may take them." 

Hawthorne was a classmate in Bowdoin College with 
Longfellow ; and two other classmates, who were his life- 
long friends, were Franklin Pierce, afterwards President of 
the United States, and Horatio Bridge. 

Hawthorne was of age when he left college, not know- 
ing yet what he would do to earn his bres-d. As a matter of 
fact he spent the next twelve or fourteen years in a very 
solitary life in his mother's house in Salem. His son, Julian, 
says of him, " There was an indolence in his nature such as, 
by the mercy of Providence, is not seldom found to mark 
the early years of those who have some great mission to 

214 



HAWTHORNE 



perform in the world ;" yet he set himself sedulously to his 
task of composition. He tried his hand at verse, but soon 
told his sister Elizabeth there would be no more of that. At 
the same time he was writing a book called Seven Tales of 
my Native Land, of which his sister said, " I read these 
tales and liked them." Hawthorne carried them, he tells 
us, to seventeen publishers unsuccessfully. Surely, not an 
encouraging beginning for a young author ! He persevered, 
however, and wrote a consecutive tale called Fanshawe, 
which Miss Hawthorne liked less well than the Seven Tales; 
but Hawthorne was determined to publish it, which he did in 
Boston, '* paying one hundred dollars for the purpose." It 
must have had a small circulation, because Hawthorne was 
very successful in destroying it later, hardly more than six 
copies being now known to exist. 

Hawthorne's courtship was like the man. He went to 
see a Miss Elizabeth Peabody, who had taken a great inter- 
est in his literary work, and met there her invalid sister, 
Sophia. Miss Peabody, writing of the meeting, says : " As 
I said, ' My sister Sophia,' he rose and looked at her intent- 
ly ; he did not realize how intently. As we went on talking, 
she would frequently interpose a remark, in her low, sweet 
voice. Every time she did so, he would look at her again, 
with the same piercing indrawing gaze. I was struck with 
it, and thought, ' What if he should fall in love with her ! 
And the thought troubled me ; for she had often told me 
that nothing would ever tempt her to marry, and inflict on 
a husband the care of an invalid. When Mr. Hawthorne got 
up to go, he said he should come for me in the evening to 
call on his sisters ; and he added, ' Miss Sophia, won't you 
come, too ? ' But she replied, ' I never go out in the evening, 

21=; 



Mr. Hawthorne.* ' I wish you would,' he said, in a low, 
urgent tone. But she smiled and shook her head, and he 
went away." 

" It may be remarked here," writes his son, " that Mrs. 
Hawthorne, in telling her children, many years afterwards, 
of these first meetings with their father, used to say that his 
presence from the very beginning exercised so strong a 
magnetic attraction upon her that, instinctively and in self- 
defense, as it were, she drew back and repelled him. The 
power which she felt in him alarmed her : she did not under- 
stand what it meant, and was only able to feel that she must 
resist. By degrees, however, her resistance was overcome ; 
and in the end she realized that they had loved each other at 
first sight." 

Miss Peabody says that Hawthorne once told her at this 
period that his sisters lived so completely out of the world 
that they hardly knew its customs, but that his sister Eliza- 
beth was very witty and original, and knew the world re- 
markably well in one sense, seeing that she learned it only 
through books. She stayed in her den, and he in his. " I 
have scarcely seen her in three months," he added. " After 
tea my mother and Louisa come down and sit with me in the 
little parlor; but both Elizabeth and my mother take their 
meals in their rooms, and my mother has eaten alone ever 
since my father's death. 

*' Whenever, after this, Mr. Hawthorne called at our 
house," continues Miss Peabody, " he generally saw Sophia, 
One day she showed him her illustration of The Gentle 
Boy, saying, ' I want to know if this looks like your I Ibra- 
him? ' He sat down and looked at it, then looked up and 
said, ' He will never look otherwise to me.' A year later he 

216 



HAWTHORNE 



wrote to me, ' Sophia is a flower to be worn in no man's 
bosom, but was lent from heaven, to show the possibiHties of 
the human soul.' " A year later Hawthorne was engaged, 
but he did not marry until 1842. Providence smiled on their 
love, for at the time of her marriage, Sophia Hawthorne 
was, for the first time since her infancy, in perfect health ; 
nor did she ever afterwards relapse into her previous con- 
dition of invalidism. 

Three years before his marriage Hawthorne had tried 
the experiment of turning politician and business man. 

At this time, evidently, Hawthorne felt the need of 
planting his feet more firmly upon the soUd earth. He there- 
fSW fore accepted, without more indecision than was natural to 

a man whose occupations were of a different character, the 
post of weigher and ganger in the Boston Custom-house, on 
a salary of twelve hundred dollars a year. The position 
came to him through the influence of his Democratic friends. 
He was not very happy in this office. In 1840, Haw- 
thorne wrote : "I pray that in one year more I may find 
some way of escaping from this unblest custom-house, for 
it is a very grievous thraldom. I do detest all offices, — all, 
at least, that are held on a political tenure ; and I want noth- 
ing to do with politicians. Their hearts wither away and 
die out of their bodies. Their consciences are turned to 
India-rubber, or to some substance as black as that and 
which will stretch as much. One thing, if no more, I have 
gained by my custom-house experience, — to know a politi- 
cian. It is a knowledge which no previous thought nor 
power of sympathy could have taught me, because the 
animal — or the machine, rather — is not in nature." 

He need not have worried his soul, for he was promptly 
217 



v>*.^ 






THE HALL OF FAME 



Ji. 





turned out of office when his two years of service were over, 
though he had made a good officer. Glad as he was to 
escape it, it seemed to put off the prospect of his marriage 
still farther. 

The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850, and gave 
Hawthorne his first popular success. It was really for that 
day a literary sensation, though it would seem very small 
now. Five thousand copies were sold in the first ten days, 
and the author was at last introduced to the larger public of 
England and America. That year he moved with his family 
to Lenox, and the eighteen months he spent there was the 
season of his greatest intellectual activity. During this time 
he wrote and published The House of the Seven Gables, and 
A Wonder Book for Children, the latter being entirely writ- 
ten in six weeks. 

In June, 1853, Hawthorne sailed away with his family 
to Liverpool. " My ancestor left England," he wrote, " in 
1630. I return in 1853. I sometimes feel as if I myself had 
been absent these two hundred and twenty-three years, leav- 
ing England just emerging from the Feudal System, and 
finding it, on my return, on the verge of Republicanism." 

The greater part of the next five years were spent in 
Liverpool, where the kindness of his college friend, President 
Franklin Pierce, had sent him as American Consul. The 
English Note Books were written during these years. Later 
he visited the Continent and made a long journey in Italy. 

In May, 1864, Hawthorne suddenly fell asleep, though 
he had not been well for some time. In March he visited 
the Fields in Boston. They were much shocked by the 
change in his appearance. He was on his way to Washing- 
ton with Mr. Ticknor, hoping that good might result for 

218 





mmi^ 



HAWTHORNE 



VVJ! 




each from the rest and warmer climate; but Mr. Ticknor's 
sudden death in Philadelphia, the grief and difficulty at- 
tendant upon their absence from home, were too much for 
Hawthorne in his weak condition. He returned very ill. 
Early in May, General Pierce proposed to take him in his 
carriage through the lovely hill-country of New England. 

Hawthorne's parting from his wife and children in 
Concord was full of shadowing and unexpressed misery; 
and, when he reached Boston, it was evident to all his friends 
that a change had indeed fallen upon him. Dr. Holmes 
wrote, " Looking along the street, I saw a form in advance 
which could be only his, — but how changed from his former 
port and figure! Yet how impossible for any one to pre- 
figure his swift vanishing ! That same night Hawthorne fell 
asleep and never woke upon our world." 

It was on the morning of May 19 that General Pierce 
wrote to Mr. Fields, after a telegram announcing Haw- 
thorne's death : " He lies upon his side, his position so per- 
fectly natural and easy — his eyes closed — that it is difficult to 
realize, while looking upon his noble face, that this is death." 

An eye-witness writes of his funeral : 

" On the 24th of May we carried Hawthorne through 
the blossoming orchards of Concord, and laid him down 
under a group of pines on a hillside, overlooking historic 
fields. All the way from the village church to the grave 
the birds kept up a perpetual melody. The sun shone bright- 
ly and the air was sweet and pleasant, as if death had never 
entered the world. Longfellow and Emerson, Channing and 
Hoar, Agassiz and Lowell, Greene and Whipple, Alcott and 
Clarke, Holmes and Hillard, and other friends whom he 
loved, walked by his side that beautiful spring morning." 

219 



.j^^ 



<?a 



THE HALL OF FAME 



?W 



CHAPTER XXI. 
PETER COOPER 

"The great object I desire to accomplish is to open the 
avenues of scienti£c knowledge to youth, so that the young 
may see the beauties of creation, enjoy its blessings and learn 
to love the author." Inscription on the tablet erected 

TO THE MEMORY OF PETER CoOPER IN THE HaLE OF FaME. 

PETER COOPER was the fifth son in a family of nine 
children, and was born in what is now Water street, 
New York City, February 12, 1791. His father, 
John Cooper, was a man of marvelous physical strength. It 
is told of him that he could lift a barrel of cider from the 
ground and put it on a wagon, and that once being cornered 
by a mad bull, he seized the animal's nose with one hand, 
took a rock in the other, and batted its head until it was very 
glad to give up the fight. Still, athlete that he was, he was 
a great believer in Providential guidance, and acted upon it 
in giving names to his children. This was the case in the 
naming of Peter. The incident can be given best in the 
words of Peter Cooper himself, who wrote : 

" My father used to tell me how he came to call me 
Peter, When I was born, he became strongly impressed with 
the idea that I would some day have more than ordinary 
fame, and what name he should give me was a matter of 

220 




Andrew Jackson (48 votes) J. C. Calhoun (49 votes) William C. Bryant (49 votes) 

John Quinct Adams (48 votes) James Madison (49 votes) 

Mark Hopkins (48 votes) Ell\s Howe (47votpsi Ettfus Choate (47 votes) 



FAMOUS MEN WHO CAME WITHIN 20 VOTES OF THE 51 VOTES REQUIRED FOR ELECTION 

(221) 




serious and frequent thought. While walking on Broad- 
way one dark night, it seemed as though a voice spoke to 
him in a clear and distinct manner : ' Call him Peter ! ' That 
seeming voice settled my name. My father said that he felt 
that I was to be of great good in some way ; and his remarks, 
with my mother's, concerning their aspirations and hopes 
for me, acted as a stimulus and made me anxious to fulfil 
their wishes, and not disappoint them." 

While Peter was yet very young, the family removed 
from a temporary residence of three years in New York 
City to Peekskill, where he remained until he was seventeen 
years of age, when he returned to the city to earn his living. 
He was a very adventurous youth, and was always getting 
into trouble through his recklessness. When only four years 
old, he climbed about the frame-work of a new house, and 
fell, head downward, upon an iron kettle, cutting his forehead 
to the bone. Raymond, in his brief biography, records that 
later on, he was accidentally cut with a knife, in the hands of 
a playmate. Later still, he cut himself dangerously with an 
axe. Again, he fell from a high tree, holding an iron hook 
with which he had been reaching for cherry-bearing 
branches, and managed to hook out one of his teeth. At 
another time he went for the nest of a hanging-bird, and 
had the fact that it was a hornet's nest indelibly impressed 
on his memory. Of course, he was nearly drowned three 
times, — such youngsters always have these escapes. In 
short, he was a thorough boy, adventuring all things, 
daunted by nothing, and protected from the results of his 
reckless endeavors by that Providence which watches over 
small boys. 

But such a temperament finds play in useful work also. 
223 



<3>*- 



THE HALL OF FAME 



The boy learned every department of the hat-making busi- 
ness, beginning, when he was very young, with puUing the 
fur from the skins of rabbits. And, while assisting his 
mother in doing the family washing, he made what was, 
perhaps, his first invention — a mechanical arrangement for 
pounding the soiled linen. Again, after carefully dissecting 
an old shoe, to learn how it was put together, he determined 
to make shoes and slippers for the family, and succeeded in 
turning out products of manufacture which were said to 
be as good as those to be found, at that day, in the regular 
trade. 

He constructed a toy wagon, sold it for six dollars, 
managed to gather four dollars more, invested the ten dol- 
lars in lottery tickets, and drew only blanks, of which ex- 
perience he said many years later, " I consider it one of the 
best investments of my life ; for I then learned that it was 
not my forte to make money at games of chance." 

In 1808 young Cooper, being now seventeen years of 
age, came to New York and apprenticed himself for four 
years to John Woodward, the leading coach builder of the 
city. According to this contract he was to receive his board 
and a salary of twenty-five dollars a year. 

When his apprenticeship was out, his employers oflFered 
to help him to start in business for himself, but he declined 
the offer from a dread of getting into debt. Then came the 
War of 181 2, which proved the beginning of his fortune. 

The supply of foreign merchandise being cut off, a great 
impulse was given to manufactures. Cloth, for example, 
rose to such an extravagant price that cloth factories sprang 
up everywhere, and there was a sudden demand for every 
description of clothmaking machinery. Peter Cooper, who 

224 









possessed a fine genius for invention, devised a machine for 
shearing the nap from the surface of cloth. It answered its 
purpose well, and he sold it without delay to good advantage. 
Then he made another ; and as often as he had one done, he 
would go to some cloth mill, explain its merits, and sell it. 
He soon had a thriving shop, where he employed several 
men, and he sold his machines faster than he could make 
them. 

In 1814, before the war ended, he contracted that ex- 
quisite marriage which gave him fifty-five years of domes- 
tic happiness, as complete, as unalloyed, as mortals can ever 
hope to enjoy. It is believed by his family that during that 
long period of time there was never an act done or a word 
spoken by either husband or wife which gave pain to the 
other. They began their married life on a humble scale in- 
deed. When a cradle became necessary, and he was called 
upon to rock it oftener than was convenient, Cooper invented 
a self-rocking cradle, with a fan attachment, which he pat- 
ented, and sold the patent for a small sum. 

The peace of 181 5 ruined his business; for no more 
cloth could be manufactured at a profit in America. He tried 
cabinet-making for a while. Then he went far up town and 
bought out a grocery store on the site of the Cooper Institute, 
which even then he thought would become by and by the 
best place in the city for the evening school which he hoped 
one day to establish. It was where the Bowery terminated 
by dividing into two forks, one of which was the old Boston 
road, now called the Third avenue, and the other was the 
Middle road, now called the Fourth avenue. He thought 
that by the time — a far-distant time — he was ready to begin 
his school, those vacant fields around him would be built 

225 



over, and that that angle would be not far from the centre 
of the town. 

The grocery store prospered. But he was not destined 
to pass his life as a grocer. One day, when he had been 
about a year in the business, as he was standing in the door 
of his shop, a wagon drove up, from which an old acquaint- 
ance sprang to the sidewalk. 

" I have been building," said the new-comer, after the 
usual salutations, " a glue factory for my son ; but I don't 
think that either he or I can make it pay. But you are the 
very man." 

" Where is it ? " asked the young grocer. 

It was on what we should now call the corner of Madi- 
son avenue and Twenty-ninth street, the present centre of 
elegance and fashion in New York. 

" I'll go and see it," he said. 

He got into the wagon with his friend, and they drove 
to the spot. He liked the prospect. All the best glue was 
then imported from Russia, the American glue being of the 
most inferior quality, and bringing only one fourth the price 
of the imported article. He saw no reason why as good glue 
could not be made in New York as in Russia. The price 
set upon the factory was two thousand dollars. It so 
happened that he possessed exactly that sum, over and above 
the capital invested in his grocery business. He concluded 
the bargain on the spot, sold out his grocery forthwith, and 
began to make glue. 

There followed this thirty years of steady hard work. 
He soon learned how to make the best glue that ever had 
been made in the world, and it brought the highest price. 
For the first twenty years, he was his own bookkeeper, clerk, 

226 




salesman, and general agent. He was up at the break of day. 
He lighted the factory fires, and always had everything 
ready for the men when they came to work at seven o'clock. 
He boiled his own glue. At noon, he drove into town in his 
wagon, called upon his customers, and sold them glue and 
isinglass. At home in the evening he posted his books, and 
read to his family. 

He carried on a life like this for thirty years, his business 
clearing him about thirty-thousand dollars a year, a large 
portion of which he saved, always thinking and talking about 
a great public institution of which he had had a dream when 
he was an apprentice boy on first coming to the city. He 
had set his heart on founding such an institution. He 
proposed to build it out of glue. He made his glue from 
bullocks' feet, and for many years he comsumed in his glue 
factory all the feet which the city yielded, and saw the price 
gradually rise from one cent to twelve cents per foot. 

When he had become a capitalist, he embarked in other 
enterprises, and made many inventions, some of which have 
since proved profitable, though for a long time they used up 
so much of his capital that they delayed the execution of his 
favorite scheme. It was at Peter Cooper's Iron Works in 
Baltimore, that the first locomotive was made ever employed 
in drawing passengers on the Western Continent ; and it was 
in Peter Cooper's ingenious brain that the idea originated of 
using iron for the beams and girders of houses. 

After holding himself squarely to the task for forty 
years, Peter Cooper found himself able to begin the execu- 
tion of the great purpose he had formed when he was a 
coach-builder's apprentice. 

As a struggling young apprentice, Peter Cooper had 
227 




!??"..*.<;■/,'.;;>« 



.-^.u. 



THE HALL OF FAME 




regarded with intense sympathy the needs and hmitations of 
working boys and girls, and he determined to do what he 
could to improve their opportunities for obtaining such edu- 
cational training as would fit them for skilled service. It 
was out of this dream of Peter Cooper that Cooper Union 
came to be a fact. When it was built, it was on the Bowery 
Road, the main stage road to Boston, and decidedly in the 
suburbs, but is now very far down-town. The site he had 
been purchasing for some time. As he accumulated the 
necessary funds, he bought at intervals lot after lot at the 
intersection of Third and Fourth avenues, until he had 
acquired the entire block, paying for his latest purchases 
(made after the neighborhood had been solidly built up and 
had become a centre of business) very high prices compared 
with those he had paid at the beginning. 

At last (in 1854) he commenced the erection of a six- 
story fireproof building of stone, brick and iron. This work 
occupied several years, and during its progress a period of 
great financial distress threatened to interrupt it. But he 
persisted in the undertaking, at great risk to his private 
business; and the building was finished at a cost (including 
that of the land) of more than six hundred and thirty thou- 
sand dollars. Subsequent gifts from Mr. Cooper, together 
with the legacy provided by his will, and doubled by his 
heirs, and still later donations from his family and immediate 
relatives, make up a total of more than double that amount. 

James Parton, in his biographical sketch of Cooper, 
after describing the scenes to be witnessed at the Union, says : 

" Such is the Cooper Institute. This is that evening 
school which Peter Cooper resolved to found as long ago as 
1 8 10. when he was a coach-maker's apprentice, looking about 

228 



«^ 





COOPER 



.^■: 



in New York for a place where he could get instruction in 
the evening, but was unable to find it. Through all his 
career, as a cabinet-maker, grocer, manufacturer of glue, and 
iron founder, he never lost sight of this object. If he had a 
fortunate year, or made a successful speculation, he was 
gratified, not that it increased his wealth, but because it 
brought him one step nearer to the realization of his ambi- 
tious dream. 

" When he first conceived the idea, there were no public 
schools in the city, and such a thing as an evening school had 
not been thought of. His first intention, therefore, was to 
establish such an evening school as he had needed himself 
when he was an apprentice boy, where boys and young men 
could improve themselves in the ordinary branches of edu- 
cation. But by the time that he was ready to begin to build, 
there were free evening schools in every ward of the city. 
His first plan was therefore laid aside, and he determined to 
found something which should impart a knowledge of the 
arts and sciences involved in the usual trades; so that 
every apprentice could become acquainted with the mechani- 
cal or chemical principles which his trade compelled him to 
apply." 

Cooper lived to be a very old man, and for many years 
had the unspeakable happiness of beholding the good done 
by his wise benevolence. One of his biographers, writing of 
these days says : 

" A pleasant sight it is, at the annual exhibition of the 
Institute in the spring, when, for three days and evenings, 
the halls are crowded with people viewing the works of art 
— the drawings, the models, the paintings, produced by the 
pupils during the year — to see the venerable founder, his 





THE HALL OF FAME 



countenance beaming with happiness, moving about among 
the company, and receiving their congratulations upon the 
success of his enterprise. Few evenings in the winter pass 
without his visiting the Institute. It is the dehght of his old 
age to see so many hundreds of young people freely enjoy- 
ing the advantages which he longed for in early life, and 
could not obtain." 

On April 4, 1883, surrounded by his children and grand- 
children, he died in great peace and honor. On the day of 
his funeral, New York City presented an almost unexampled 
spectacle. The church where his body lay in state was 
thronged with a great multitude passing in procession to 
look upon the face of the man whom every citizen had come 
to regard as a friend. 

Eighteen young men from the Cooper Union surrounded 
it, as a guard of honor. A body of 3,500 students of that 
Institution, of both sexes, marched by, casting flowers upon 
the coffin, and followed by delegations from all the municipal 
and charitable organizations of the city, and by uncounted 
multitudes representing every class whose relation to the 
beloved philanthropist was not official or representative, but 
simply personal. 

The busiest streets of New York, through which the 
funeral procession passed on its way to Greenwood Ceme- 
tery, beyond the East River, were closed to business and 
hung in black. The flags on all public buildings, and on the 
ships in the harbor, were at half-mast. The bells of all 
churches were tolled. The whole city mourned, as it had 
not done since, eighty years before, the funeral procession of 
George Washington moved through its streets. 



230 



WHITNEY 



CHAPTER XXn. 



^1 



ELI WHITNEY 

" The machine, it is true, operates in the iirst instance 
on mere physical elements to produce an accumulation and 
distribution of property, hut do not all the arts of civilization 
follow in its train." Inscription on the tablet erected 

TO THE MEMORY OE ElI WhITNEY IN THE HaLE OE FaME. 

ELI WHITNEY, the man who invented the cotton gin, 
and by that act performed a deed of marvelous phil- 
anthropy toward his fellow men, was born in West- 
borough, Massachusetts, November 8, 1765. He was a 
poor boy, and worked at making nails at first, and after- 
wards by teaching, to obtain an education. Nothing daunted 
him, and he finally succeeded in working his way through 
Yale College, where he graduated in 1792. 

From his earliest boyhood, Eli was of an inventive turn 
of mind. He was born with a mechanical bent. He always 
knew how to handle tools, and while in Yale College he was 
accustomed to repair the laboratory apparatus whenever 
it was out of order, and he did it with such remarkable nicety 
that he won great admiration from the professors and stu- 
dents. 

Soon after his graduation, young Whitney went South 
to teach school. He resided with Mrs. Nathaniel Greene, 

231 



THE HALL OF FAME 



the widow of the famous General Greene, of the Revolu- 
tion, just outside the city of Savannah. One day in the fall 
of 1792, a number of neighboring planters were assembled 
socially at her house. The conversation naturally turned to 
the hard times then felt in the Southern States as a result of 
the Revolutionary War. Nearly all the planters were in 
debt. Their lands were heavily mortgaged, and such crops 
as they were producing brought but little profit. The result 
of all this was that their young people and the brightest and 
most enterprising of their citizens were moving out of the 
country. The planters all agreed that the chief cause for 
the hard conditions they faced was the difficulty of raising 
cotton with profit, owing to the great labor required in 
separating the fibres of the cotton from the seeds. One can 
easily understand this, when we remember that at that day 
it required a good hand to work one entire day in order to 
get one pound of clean cotton. It was this fact that rendered 
the raising of cotton so little profitable, and was paralyzing 
the business life of the South. 

On that memorable day, in the autumn of 1792, when 
these Georgia farmers were talking of their troubles, the 
idea was finally started that perhaps this work of separating 
the seeds from the cotton might be done by machinery. 
When this suggestion was made, Mrs. Greene spoke up, 
saying : 

" Gentlemen, apply to my young friend, Mr. Whitney, 
he can make anything." 

James Parton well says that few words have ever been 
spoken on this globe that have had such important and 
memorable consequences as this simple observation of Mrs. 
Nathaniel Greene. 

232 



WHITNEY 



She now introduced Mr. Whitney to her friends, who 
described to him the difficulties under which they labored. 
He told them he had never seen a pod of cotton in his life. 
Without giving them any promises, he resolved to procure 
some raw cotton forthwith, and see what he could do with 
it. Searching about the wharves of Savannah, he found, at 
length, some uncleaned cotton, and taking home a bundle of 
it in his hands, he shut himself up in a room in the cellar, 
and at once went to work to devise the machine required. 

All that winter Eli Whitney stuck to his cellar and his 
cotton. 

There were no proper tools to be had in Savannah. He 
made his own tools. There was no wire. He made his own 
wire. The children, the servants, the visitors at the house, 
wondered what he could be doing in the basement all alone. 
But he said nothing, and kept on thinking, hammering, and 
tinkering, till, early in the spring of 1793, he had completed 
his work. Having set up the mysterious machine in a shed, 
he invited a number of planters to come and witness its 
operation. Its success was complete. The gentlemen saw, 
with unbounded wonder and delight, that one man, with this 
young Yankee's engine, could clean as much cotton in one 
day as a man could clean by hand in a whole winter. The 
cotton grown on a large plantation could be separated from 
the seed in a few days, which before required the constant 
labor of a hundred hands for several months. 

Thus was the cotton gin invented. The principle was 
so simple that the wonder was that no one had thought of it 
before. The cotton was put into a large trough, the bottom 
of which was formed of wires placed in parallel rows, so 
close together that the seed could not pass through. Under 

233 



THE HALL OF FAME 




this trough saws revolved, the teeth of which thrust them- 
selves between the wires and snatched the cotton through, 
leaving the seed behind, which ran out in a stream at one 
end of the trough. 

The simplicity of the cotton gin had, according to 
Whitney's biographer, two effects, — one good, the other bad. 

The good effect was, that in the course of a very few 
years it was introduced all over the cotton States, increased 
the value of all the cotton lands, doubled and trebled the 
production of cotton, and raised the Southern States from 
hopeless depression to the greatest prosperity. The effect 
was as lasting as it was sudden. In 1793 the whole export 
of cotton from the United States was ten thousand bales. 
In 1859 the export was four millions of bales. Men ac- 
quainted with the subject are of opinion that that single in- 
vention has been worth to the South one thousand millions 
of dollars. 

How much did the inventor gain by it ? Not one dollar ! 
Associating himself with a man of capital, he went to Con- 
necticut to set up a manufactory of cotton gins. But the 
simplicity of the machine was such, that any good mechanic 
who saw it could make one; and long before Whitney was 
ready to supply machines of his own making there were great 
numbers in operation all over the cotton States. His patent 
proved to be no protection to him. If he brought a suit for 
its infringement, no Southern jury would give him a verdict. 
He struggled on against adverse influences for fifteen years. 
In 1808, when his patent expired, he gave up the contest and 
withdrew from the business, a poorer man than he was on 
the day when he went, with his handful of cotton pods, into 
Mrs. Greene's basement. Thousands of men were rich, who, 

234 




but for his ingenuity and labor, would have remained poor to 
the end of their days. The levees of the Southern seaports 
were heaped high with cotton, which, but for him, would 
never have been grown. Fleets of cotton ships sail the 
seas, which, but for him, would never have been built. He, 
the creator of so much wealth, returned to his native State, 
at the age of forty-two, to begin the world anew. 

But EH Whitney belonged to that class of men who are 
not easily put down by difficulties. Such men are like a 
rubber ball. The harder you hurl them against the earth, 
the higher they will bounce. Eli Whitney was one of those 
unconquerable human steam engines who can not be de- 
feated. Such men always win in the end. So at forty-two 
years of age, he set out to invent something else by which 
iie might earn his bread. He turned his attention to the im- 
provement of fire-arms, particularly the old-fashioned mus- 
ket. Having established a manufactory of fire-arms at New 
Haven, he prospered in business, and was enabled at length 
to have a home of his own. Late in life he was most happily 
married to the daughter of Judge Pierpont Edwards, and 
his domestic life was full of peace. Eli Whitney gave the 
impulse, and laid the foundation in inventions connected 
with fire-arms which have given the United States the best 
pistols and the best cannon in the world. Whitney died in 
January, 1825, in his sixtieth year. 




235 



CHAPTER XXIII. 





ROBERT EDWARD LEE 

" Duty, then, is the sublimest word in our language — 
do your duty in all things — you cannot do more, you should 
never wish to do less." Inscription on the; tablet krecteid 

TO THE MEMORY OF RoBERT E. LEE IN THE HaLL OF FamE. 

LIGHT HORSE HARRY " LEE was a name to conjure 
with in early Virginia. His fame as a cavalry leader 
"* and as a brave and daring gentleman, was in all 
the land. 

Robert Edward Lee was the son, by a second marriage, 
of this brilliant soldier. He was born January 19, 1807, in 
the family house at Stratford, in Westmoreland County. 
His boyhood was passed in Virginia, without marked inci- 
dent. In 181 8 his father died, away from home, while re- 
turning from a visit to the West Indies, whither he had 
gone in search of health. 

In 1825 he met General Andrew Jackson, and having 
produced a good impression on him, as he did on everyone, 
the general secured him an appointment at West Point. His 
career at West Point was very brilliant. His conduct was 
absolutely perfect, as he received not a single demerit during 
his course. He had no vices, and graduated after a four 
years' course with the second highest honors. He was at 

236 





< s 

" J 






mm^^- 



^m 



LEE 



.^■ 



once appointed a second lieutenant of Engineers, and 
hastened home in bare time to kiss his mother before she 
died. 

As it was in a time of peace, he was for six years em- 
ployed in engineering work on the military defenses of the 
seaboard. In 1832 he was married to Miss Mary Randolph 
Custis, of Arlington, in Alexandria County, Virginia. This 
young lady was the heiress of George Washington Parke 
Custis, the adopted son of General Washington, and son of 
his wife by her first marriage. By this marriage, young 
Lieutenant Lee became possessed of the beautiful estate at 
Arlington, opposite Washington, and of the equally cele- 
brated family seat of the Custis family, the White House, on 
the banks of the Pamunky, which was afterwards destroyed 
during the Civil War. In 1836, Lee was promoted first 
lieutenant, and in 1838, captain. Continuing in the engin- 
eering corps, he was called into active service in the Mexican 
war; at first under General Wool, and subsequently with 
General Scott, with whom he conducted the arduous cam- 
paign from Vera Cruz to the capital. Scott constantly, in his 
official reports, commends the activity and usefulness of 
Captain Lee, upon whose judgment and skill he greatly re- 
lied in all his military movements. 

Lee was constantly employed in reconnoissances, and 
tracing out paths for the progress of the victorious army. 
In his record of the action at Cerro Gordo, Scott writes : 
" I am compelled to make special mention of Captain R. E. 
Lee, engineer. This officer greatly distinguished himself at 
the siege of Vera Cruz ; was again indefatigable during these 
operations in reconnoissances as daring as laborious, and of 
the utmost value. Nor was he less conspicuous in planning 

239 




THE HALL OF FAME 



batteries, and in conducting columns to their stations under 
the heavy fire of the enemy," 

He was similarly employed with equal honor in the sub- 
sequent actions; in the words of Scott, " as distinguished for 
felicitous execution as for science and daring." 

In the closing action at Chapultepec, Lee was wounded, 
and compelled, from loss of blood, to retire from the field. 
After the war, Lee, who had by successive promotions be- 
come colonel, was in 1852, and for two subsequent years, 
Superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point. In 
1855, he was employed as lieutenant-colonel of a cavalry 
regiment in Texas, and in 1859 was brought prominently 
into notice by his command of the regular troops sent from 
Washington to suppress the insurrection of the famous 
John Brown, at Harper's Ferry. When he arrived on the 
spot. Brown, at bay, was shut up with the prisoners he had 
taken in one of the buildings on the armory grounds ; Lee's 
dispositions were skilfully made; the prisoners were re- 
leased and Brown captured. 

At the outbreak of the Southern war Colonel Lee was 
with his regiment in Texas. Returning to Virginia he sent 
in his resignation in April, 1861, immediately after the fall 
of Sumter. In a letter to Lieutenant-General Scott, dated 
Arlington on the 20th, he wrote stating that he would have 
resigned before, " but for the struggle it has cost me to 
separate myself from a service to which I have devoted all 
the best years of my life, and all the ability I possessed. 
Save in the defense of my native State, I never de- 
sire again to draw my sword." To his sister he wrote at the 
same time : " We are now in a state of war which will yield 
to nothing. The whole South is in a state of revolution, into 

240 



f'm 



h'^\ 




LEE 



which Virginia, after a long struggle, has been drawn ; and 
though I recognize no necessity for this state of things, and 
would have forborne and pleaded to the end for the redress 
of grievances, real or supposed, yet in my own person I had 
to meet the question, whether I should take part against my 
native State. With all my devotion to the Union, and the 
feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have 
not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against 
my relatives, my children, my home. I have, therefore, re- 
signed my commission in the army ; and, save in defense of 
my native State, with the sincere hope that my poor ser- 
vices may never be needed, I hope I may never be called on 
to draw my sword." 

These utterances exhibit in few words the opinions and 
feelings of Colonel Lee at this time. Imbued with the doc- 
trine of State rights, impressed with sympathy for his 
kindred, unable to extricate himself from what he thought 
the necessity of his position, he reluctantly bade adieu to the 
nation from which he had derived all his honors, and ac- 
cepted the uncertain fortunes of a warring section of the 
country, 

Lee was ready to sacrifice his fortune for Virginia, and 
the State, conscious of his worth, hastened to draw him 
from his retirement and entrust her welfare in his hands. 
On the 23d of April he was appointed by Governor Letcher, 
Major-General of the State forces, and solemnly pledged 
himself before the Virginia Convention, then assembled at 
Richmond, to the duty assigned to him. He was immediately 
actively engaged in organizing the bodies of troops which 
hastened to Virginia as the battle-ground of the war. When 
the government of the Southern Confederacy was fully 

241 



THE HALL OF FAME 






established at Richmond, he received, in July, the rank of 
Brigadier-General in the Confederate army. His estate at 
Arlington Heights, where he had at the outset erected forti- 
fications, was now deserted, and in the possession of the 
Union forces. 

There is no space to follow the years of war, by which 
Lee won his fame as a great commander. In February, 
1865, destined to be the last year of the war, Lee, in obedi- 
ence to a universally expressed desire, was created General- 
in-Chief of the army of the Confederate States. In assum- 
ing the command, he said in a general order : " Deeply im- 
pressed with the difficulties and responsibilities of the posi- 
tion, and humbly invoking the guidance of Almighty God, 
I rely for success upon the courage and fortitude of the 
army, sustained by the patriotism and firmness of the people 
— confident that their united efforts, under the blessing of 
heaven, will secure peace and independence." But the ex- 
hausted Confederate cause was past surgery. Not even the 
skill, prudence and military combinations of Lee could save 
it. Its strength was effectually broken by the grand march 
of Sherman in the South ; and Grant, at the end of March, 
was closing in upon the devoted city. 

Lee made one last effort for Richmond, in an attack on 
the Union forts before Petersburg, on the 25th ; but the valor 
of his troops was of no avail. Overpowered by numbers and 
superior resources, he was compelled to evacuate his capital. 
The Union forces followed on the track of his enfeebled 
army, and on the 9th of April Lee surrendered to Grant, at 
Appomattox Court House. He received honorable terms, 
being paroled with his army. The war was virtually at an 
end. 

242 






On the loth of April, Lee issued the following farewell 
address to his army: " After four years of arduous service, 
marked by unsurpassed courage and fDrtitude, the army of 
northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to over- 
whelming numbers and resources. I need not tell the sur- 
vivors of so many hard- fought battles, who have remained 
steadfast to the last, that I have consented to this result from 
no distrust of them ; but, holding that valor and devotion 
could accomplish nothing that could compensate for the loss 
that would attend the continuation of the contest, I have 
determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past 
vigor has endeared them to their countrymen. By the terms 
of agreement, officers and men can return to their homes and 
remain there till exchanged. You will take with you the 
satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty 
faithfully performed, and I earnestly pray that a merciful 
God will extend you his blessing and protection. With an 
increasing admiration of your constancy and devotion to 
your country, and a grateful remembrance of your kind and 
generous consideration of myself, I bid you an affectionate 
farewell." 

After this, Lee returned to his home in Richmond, where 
he passed a few months in retirement ; and in October, hav- 
ing taken the amnesty oath required by the government, 
was installed President of Washington College, at Lexing- 
ton, in the Valley of Virginia. Avoiding, as far as possible, 
all public notoriety, he continued in the discharge of the 
duties of this office during the brief remainder of his life. 

General Lee died at his home at Lexington, of conges- 
tion of the brain, October 12, 1790. In accordance with his 
request, he was buried in the chapel of the university. 

243 






CHAPTER XXIV. 
HORACE MANN 

" The common school is the greatest discovery ever 
made by man. It is supcrcmincnt in its universality and in 
the timeliness of the aid it proffers." Inscription on the: 

TABLET KRECTED TO THE) MEMORY OF HoRACE) ManN IN THE 

Hali, oe Fame. 

GRACE MANN, the father of modern education in 
America, was born May 4, 1796, in Franklin, Nor- 
folk County, Massachusetts. His father, Thomas 
Mann, was a small farmer, who died when Horace was but 
thirteen years of age. The family were very poor, so poor 
that the opportunities for education were of the meagerest 
sort. The town, too, was poor, and so only the cheapest 
teachers were ever hired. To make it worse, the father died 
of consumption, and Horace inherited the tendency to that 
disease, and had that to fight against during all his younger 
life. 

The mother, who had been a Miss Stanley, was a woman 
of fine mind and very superior character. She was not a 
well educated woman, but had a splendid intelligence, and 
did for her children all that was within her power. 

Professor William F. Phelps, writing of this early life 
of Horace Mann, says that Mann always regarded it as a 

244 



great misfortune that his childhood was not a happy one. 
By nature he was exceedingly elastic and buoyant, but the 
poverty of his parents subjected him to constant privations. 
In the winter time he was employed in sedentary occupa- 
tions, confining him too closely, while in the summer his 
farm labors were so severe as often to encroach upon the 
hours for sleep. He could not remember the time when 
he began to work. His play hours were earned by finishing 
tasks early to gain a little leisure for boyish sports. He 
declared that he gained one compensation from the rigors 
of his early lot, since industry and diligence became his 
second nature, although he thought it would puzzle any 
psychologist to tell where the second joined on to the first. 
Owing to these ingrained habits " work was always to him 
what water is to a fish ! " Whenever he had any thing to do 
he never demurred, but always set about it like a fatalist, 
and it was as sure to be done as the sun is to set. 

The love of knowledge was, in his early days, cramped 
into a love of books. There was no such thing then known 
as oral instruction. Books for children were few in number, 
and their contents meagre and miserable indeed. The 
teachers of the time were very good people, but very poor 
teachers. 

Horace Mann remained with his mother till he was 
twenty. An inexpressible thirst for knowledge now pos- 
sessed him. All his boyish air castles had reference to get- 
ting an education and being of some help to humanity. A 
teacher came along named Barrett, who, though he must 
have been a peculiar creature, was a godsend to young 
Mann. Mr. Barrett's specialty was English grammar, Greek 
and Latin. All his knowledge was at perfect command. 

245 




THE HALL OF FAME 



wiVpjJHse^ 




In hearing recitations from Virgil, Cicero, the Greek Testa- 
ment, or other classical study, he never took a book in hand. 
All the details were perfectly familiar to him. But he was 
learned in the languages only. In arithmetic he was an idiot. 
He never learned the multiplication table, nor did he know 
enough to date a letter or tell the time of day by the clock. 

Under this strange teacher's tuition Mr. Mann first saw 
a Latin grammar, but it was the Vent, vidi, vici, of Caesar. 
In six months he prepared for college, having learned the 
grammar and read Cordcrius, JBsop's Fables, the Mneid, 
with parts of the Gcorgics, and Bucolics, Cicero's Select 
Orations, the Four Gospels, part of the Epistles in Greek, 
and part of Graeca Majora and Minora. He entered the 
Sophomore class of Brown University, Providence, in Sep- 
tember, 1816, and graduating in 1819, took the " first honor " 
of his class. His theme was " The Progress of the Human 
Race." Six weeks before Commencement, he entered his 
name in the law office of Hon. J. J. Fiske, of Wrentham, as 
a student. Within a few months, however, he was invited 
back to college as a tutor in Latin and Greek. 

In 1 82 1 he attended the celebrated law school at Litch- 
field, Conn., then under Judge Gould, one of the most dis- 
tinguished jurists of his time. In 1823 he entered the office 
of the Hon. James Richardson, of Dedham, Mass., was ad- 
mitted to the Bar, and immediately opened an office at that 
place. He made it the inflexible rule of his professional life 
never to undertake a case that he did not believe to be right. 
He believed that an advocate loses his highest power when he 
loses the ever-conscious conviction that he is contending 
for the truth. In 1827 Mr. Mann was elected to the Massa- 
chusetts House of Representatives from Dedham and con- 

246 





/.m 



iiiwtf^ 



MANN 



tinued to be returned thereto until 1833. During that year 
he removed to Boston, entering into partnership with Edward 
G. Loring. At the next election he was chosen to the State 
Senate from the County of Suffolk, and continued to be re- 
elected for four years, being president of that body 
during the years 1836 and 1837. In the latter year he retired 
from political life and became Secretary of the Massachu- 
setts Board of Education. 

The act which most signalized his legislative life in the 
House of Representatives was the establishment of the State 
Lunatic Hospital, at Worcester, the first institution of the 
kind ever created and sustained at public cost. The Board 
of Education was organized on the 29th of June, 1837, ^^'^ 
Horace Mann was elected its secretary, entering upon his 
duties immediately. 

On becoming Secretary of the Board of Education, he 
withdrew from all other professional and business engage- 
ments whatsoever, that no vocation but the one in hand 
might intrude in any way upon his mind or attention. He 
even resigned his offices in connection with different temper- 
ance organizations to which he belonged. He separated 
himself from all political parties, and Professor Phelps as- 
sures us that during the twelve years of his secretaryship he 
never attended a political caucus or convention of any kind. 

" He resolved to be seen and known only as an educa- 
tionist. Though sympathizing as heartily as ever with the 
reforms of the day, he knew how fatally obnoxious they were 
to whole classes of people whom he desired to influence for 
good ; and as he could not do all things at once, he sought to 
do the best things, and those which lay in the immediate path 
of duty, first. 

247 





THE HALL OF FAME 



" Men's minds at the time were so fired with partisan 
zeal on many subjects that great jealously existed lest the 
interests of some other cause should be subserved under the 
guise of a regard for education. Nor could vulgar and 
bigoted persons comprehend why a man should drop from 
an honorable and exalted station into comparative obscurity, 
and from a handsome income to a mere subsistence, unless 
actuated by some bigoted and unworthy motive. Subsequent 
events proved the wisdom of his course. 

" The Board was soon assailed with violence by political 
partisans, by anti-temperance demagogues and other bigots 
after their kind, and nothing but the impossibility of fasten- 
ing any purpose upon its secretary save absolute devotion to 
his duty saved it from wreck. During a period of twelve 
years' continuous service, no opponent of the cause, or of 
Mr, Mann's views in conducting it, was ever able to specify 
a single instance in which he had prostituted or perverted the 
influence of his office for any personal, partisan, or collateral 
end whatever." 

It is impossible to appreciate at its true value the work 
which Horace Mann did for popular education, unless we 
realize to some extent the pitiful condition of the common 
schools of Massachusetts, and, indeed, of the entire country 
at that time. Speaking of this in his First Annual Report, 
made during the latter part of 1837, Mr. Mann says : 

" Under this silent but rapid corrosion it recently hap- 
pened (1836) in one of the most flourishing towns of the 
State, having a population of more than three thousand per- 
sons, that the principal district school actually ran down, and 
was not kept for two years." 

In the biography of Mr. Mann, it is stated that " In 
248 



MANN 



W 



Massachusetts the common school system had degenerated in 
practice from the original views of the Pilgrim Fathers. 
Common and equal opportunities of education for all was 
the primitive idea of those men, who had been so signally 
made to feel how unequally human rights were shared. The 
opportunities, unparalleled in the world's history, which the 
establishment of the Federal Union had opened to all classes 
of men to obtain wealth, had caused the idea to be nearly lost 
sight of, and the common schools had been allowed to de- 
generate into neglected schools for the poorer classes only." 

In Mr. Mann's diary, and in numerous letters, he pre- 
sents for nearly every town he visited the same dark picture 
of apathy or open opposition on the part of the people, and 
of ignorance and incompetency in the teachers. His first 
annual report was largely occupied with the presentation of 
the deplorable deficiencies of the schools in respect to the 
situation, construction, condition, and number of school- 
houses ; the neglect of school committees in the discharge of 
their duties ; the indifference of the people, and the short- 
comings of those who were employed to instruct the chil- 
dren. 

In his second report, Mr. Mann described the existing 
methods of instruction in spelling and reading, and pointed 
out their defects. The faulty character of the selections in 
school reading-books were also noticed; their want of con- 
nection and interest to the pupil, and the utter unintelligibil- 
ity of many of them, were also referred to. 

Nothing connected with the administration, the instruc- 
tion, and discipline of the schools seemed to escape his 
vigilant observation. His twelve annual reports constitute 
an enduring monument of well-directed zeal in the public 

249 




THE HALL OF FAME 

service, of comprehensive and practical views of educational 
improvement, of a thorough appreciation of the degraded 
condition of the schools, and of his power as a master of the 
English language. From these reports, from his brilliant 
popular lectures and addresses, and from the Common 
School Journal, conducted on his own responsibility, it is 
made evident that he aimed at the root of the evils that ob- 
structed and embarrassed the progress of true education and 
imperilled the best interests of all institutions based upon the 
intelligence and virtue of the people. As a prominent edu- 
cator writes: ''The defects of the Massachusetts schools 
were common to New England and to the whole country, 
and their thorough exposure in the thrilling eloquence of the 
Secretary of the Board of Education, caused a great awaken- 
ing, and set on foot comprehensive measures of reform, 
whose widely beneficent influence will be felt to the end of 
time." 

After he had been some years in the work, Horace 
Mann traveled abroad and thoroughly studied the schools of 
several of the leading countries of Europe. To the schools 
of England, Ireland, Scotland, Prussia, Germany, Holland, 
Belgium, and France he gave the most intelligent and pa- 
tient observation, gleaning everything that was of value for 
the benefit of American schools. Especially did he examine 
carefully into institutions for the blind, deaf mutes, orphans, 
vagrants, and juvenile offenders. To a mind like Horace 
Mann's a valuable observation was never simply adopted as 
found, but a new idea always improved in the fruitful soil 
of his mind. 

On the 15th of September, 1852, Mr. Mann was nom- 
inated for Governor of Massachusetts, and elected President 

250 



:«•) 



• •CI 

•Co] 



xV 



^M 



■i> 






\arp» 



of Antioch College, Ohio. Declining the political honor, he 
accepted the latter office, with all its service of toil, anxiety, 
and sorrow. He had long before retired from the service of 
the Board of Education, and had nearly completed three 
terms as a representative in Congress, and as the successor 
of the younger Adams. In the State Convention which 
had nominated him, the Hon, Anson Burlingame said of 
him: 

"As to the candidate we have nominated, I shall say 
nothing but that his fame is as wide as the universe. It was 
my fortune to be, some time since, in Guildhall, London, when 
a debate was going on. The question was, whether they 
should instruct their representatives in favor of secular edu- 
cation. They voted that they would not do it. But a gentle- 
man then arose, and read some statistics from one of the 
reports of Horace Mann. That extract reversed the vote in 
the Common Council of London. I never felt prouder of my 
country. 

" I call, then, upon the young men of the Commonwealth, 
who have grown up under the inspiration of his free schools, 
to sustain their champion, and to carry his name over the hills 
and through the pleasant valleys of Massachusetts during 
the present canvass, with that enthusiasm which shall result 
in a glorious victory." 

Antioch College proved to be a hard and unfruitful 
field. The college was oppressed with financial embarrass- 
ment sufficient to paralyze all its interests. He satisfied him- 
self of the practicality of co-education, but, after struggling 
for nearly six years against insurmountable obstacles, 
Horace Mann fell a martyr to his zeal in the cause of edu- 
cation, and died August 2, 1859. 

251 



CHAPTER XXV. 
JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 

The productions of nature soon became my playmates. 
I felt an intimacy with them not consisting of friendship 
merely, but bordering on frenzy, must accompany my steps 
through life." Inscription on thk tablet erected to the 
MEMORY oE John James Audubon in the Hael of Fame. 



JOHN JAMES AUDUBON was born in New Orleans, 
May 4, 1780, or rather, upon his father's plantation, 
near that city. His father was a Frenchman, and his 
mother of Spanish extraction. A few years after his birth, 
the family removed to Santo Domingo, and there his mother 
perished at the time of the uprising of the negro population. 
Some time later his father married again, and returned with 
his family to France, and there, unable to settle down, he 
left the boy with his second wife, and again put forth on his 
travels and adventures. Thus the future naturalist grew up 
in France. After a while his father became a French 
admiral, and returning to France, looked into his son's edu- 
cation. 

Young Audubon, while still a small boy, showed a re- 
markable interest in the beautiful birds that flew about his 
father's sugar plantation, particularly the mocking bird, 
which is never so splendid as in Louisiana. He was scarce- 

252 






HiEAM Powers (36 votes) Noah AVebster (36 votes) Daniel Boone (35 votes) 

J. S. Copley (33 votes) Samuel Adams (33 votes) 

Horace Bushnell (32 votes) Willum H. Prescott (33 votes) Henry H. Richardson (32 votes) 



FAMOUS MEN WHO CAME WITHIN 20 VOTES OF THE 51 VOTES REQUIRED FOR ELECTION 

(253) 



AUDUBON 



ly more than a baby when he had gathered a considerable 
collection of living birds; and he tells us that his first at- 
tempts to draw and paint were inspired by his desire to 
preserve a memento of the beautiful plumage of some of his 
birds that died. In delineating his feathered friends, he dis- 
played so much talent that, at the age of fourteen, his father 
took him to Paris, and placed him in the studio of the fam- 
ous painter, David, where he neglected every other branch 
of art except the one that helped him to paint birds. David's 
forte was in painting battle-pieces, but Audubon cared 
nothing for these things, and occupied himself almost ex- 
clusively in painting birds. At seventeen, his father losing 
all hope of making a soldier or a sailor of him, sent him over 
to America to look after a large tract of land which he had 
acquired in Pennsylvania, situated on the banks of the 
Schuylkill River. Here he began again, with all the ardor of 
youth, his favorite study of ornithology. 

Near his place in Pennsylvania, where he stopped for a 
while, he met and fell in love with Lucy Bakewell, who after- 
wards became his wife. This is the pen-and-ink sketch 
which Audubon has left us of himself at this time : " I 
measured five feet ten and a half inches, was of a fair mien, 
and quite a handsome figure ; large, dark, and rather sunken 
eyes, light colored eyebrows, aquiline nose, and a fine set of 
teeth; hair, fine texture and luxuriant, divided and passing 
down behind each ear in luxuriant ringlets as far as the 
shoulders." 

On the 8th of April, 1808, Audubon and Miss Bakewell 
were married, and at once set out for the West. Journeying 
by Pittsburg, they reached Louisville with their goods in 
safety. From Pittsburg they sailed down the Ohio in a flat- 

255 



irttr?^ 






THE HALL OF FAME 





bottomed boat called an Ark, and which proved to be an 
exceedingly tedious mode of travel. This river voyage 
occupied twelve days. At Louisville, Audubon began to live 
the life of a trader, but hunting and birds continued to be the 
ruling passion. His life at this period, in the company of 
his young wife, appears to have been extremely happy, and he 
writes that he had really reason " to care for nothing." The 
country around Louisville was settled by planters who were 
fond of hunting, and among whom he found a ready wel- 
come. The shooting and drawing of birds was continued. 
His partner and friend Rosier, less fond of rural sports, 
stuck to the counter, and, as Audubon phrases it, " grew 
rich, and that was all he cared for." 

Audubon's pursuits appear to have severed him from 
the business, which was left to Rosier's management. Finally 
the war of 1812 imperilled the prosperity of the partners, 
and what goods remained on hand were shipped to Hender- 
sonville, Kentucky, where Rosier remained for some years 
longer, before going further westward in search of the 
fortune he coveted. Writing of the kindness shown him by 
his friends at Louisville, Audubon relates that when he was 
absent on business, or " away on expeditions," his wife was 
invited to stay at General Clark's, and was taken care of till 
he returned. 

It was at Louisville that Audubon made the acquaint- 
ance of Wilson, the American ornithologist. Wilson, a 
Scottish weaver, had been driven from Paisley through his 
sympathies with the political agitators of that notable Scot- 
tish town; and finding a refuge in the United States, had 
turned his attention to ornithology. From the pages of 
Audubon's Ornithological Biography, it may be interesting 

256 




AViimltir^t^^ 



rnmi^- 



' 0m 








to reproduce an account of the meeting between the two 
naturahsts. 

" One fair morning," writes Audubon, " I was surprised 
by the sudden entrance into our counting-room at Louisville 
of Mr. Alexander Wilson, the celebrated author of the 
American Ornithology, of whose existence I had never until 
that moment been apprised. This happened in March, 1810. 
How well do I remember him, as he then walked up to me ! 
His long, rather hooked nose, the keenness of his eyes, and 
his prominent cheekbones, stamped his countenance with a 
peculiar character. His dress, too, was of a kind not usually 
seen in that part of the country ; a short coat, trousers, and 
a waistcoat of gray cloth. His stature was not above the 
middle size. He had two volumes under his arm, and as he 
approached the table at which I was working, I thought I 
discovered something like astonishment in his countenance. 
He, however, immediately proceeded to disclose the object of 
his visit, which was to procure subscriptions for his work. 

" He opened his books, explained the nature of his oc- 
cupations, and requested my patronage. I felt surprised and 
gratified at the sight of his volumes, turned over a few 
of the plates, and had already taken a pen to write my name 
in his favor, when my partner, rather abruptly, said to me, 
in French, ' My dear Audubon, what induces you to sub- 
scribe to this work ? Your drawings are certainly far better ; 
and again, you must know as much of the habits of Ameri- 
can birds as this gentleman.' Whether Mr. Wilson under- 
stood French or not, or if the suddenness with which I 
paused, disappointed him, I cannot tell ; but I clearly per- 
ceived that he was not pleased. Vanity and the encomiums 
of my friend prevented me from subscribing. 

257 




<<tiss 






THE HALL OF FAME 



" Mr. Wilson asked me if I had many drawings of birds. 
I rose, took down a large portfolio, laid it on the table, and 
showed him, — as I would show you, kind reader, or any 
other person fond of such subjects, — the whole of the con- 
tents, with the same patience with which he had shown me 
his own engravings. His surprise appeared great, as he told 
me he never had the most distant idea that any other indi- 
vidual than himself had been engaged in forming such a 
collection. He asked me if it was my intention to publish, 
and when I answered in the negative, his surprise seemed 
to increase. And, truly, such was not my intention ; for, 
until long after, when I met the Prince of Musignano in 
Philadelphia, I had not the least idea of presenting the fruits 
of my labors to the world. 

" Mr. Wilson now examined my drawings with care, 
asked if I should have any objections to lending him a few 
during his stay, to which I replied that I had none. He then 
bade me good-morning, not, however, until I had made an 
arrangement to explore the woods in the vicinity along with 
him, and had promised to procure for him some birds, of 
which I had drawings in my collections, but which he had 
never seen. 

" It happened that he lodged in the same house with us, 
but his retired habits, I thought, exhibited either a strong 
feeling of discontent or a decided melancholy. The Scotch 
airs which he played sweetly on his flute made me melancholy 
too, and I felt for him. 

" I presented him to my wife and friends, and seeing 
that he was all enthusiasm, exerted myself as much as was 
in my power to procure for him the specimens which he 
wanted. We hunted together, and obtained birds which he 

258 



AUDUBON 



had never before seen ; but, reader, I did not subscribe for 
his work, for, even at that time, my collection was greater 
than his. Thinking that perhaps he might be pleased to pub- 
lish the results of my researches, I offered them to him, 
merely on condition that what I had drawn, or might after- 
wards draw and send to him, should be mentioned in his 
work, as coming from my pencil. I at the same time offered 
to open a correspondence with him, which I thought might 
prove beneficial to us both. He made no reply to either 
proposal, and before many days had elapsed, left Louisville, 
on his way to New Orleans, little knowing how much his 
talents were appreciated in our little town, at least by myself 
and by my friends. 

" Some time elapsed, during which I never heard of 
him or his work. At length, having occasion to go to Phila- 
delphia, I, immediately after my arrival there, inquired for 
him, and paid him a visit. He was then drawing a white- 
headed eagle. He received me with civility, and took me to 
the exhibition rooms of Rembrandt Peale, the artist, who 
had then portrayed Napoleon crossing the Alps. Mr. Wil- 
son spoke not of birds or drawings. Feeling, as I was 
forced to do, that my company was not agreeable, I parted 
from him; and after that I never saw him again. But judge 
of my astonishment some time after, when, on reading the 
thirty-ninth page of the ninth volume of American Ornithol- 
ogy, I found in it the following paragraph : 

" ' March 23, 1810. — I bade adieu to Louisville, to which 
place I had four letters of recommendation, and was taught 
to expect much of everything there ; but neither received one 
act of civility from those to whom I was recommended, one 
subscriber, nor one new bird ; though I delivered my letters, 

259 



THE HALL OF FAME 



ransacked the woods repeatedly, and visited all the characters 
likely to subscribe. Science or literature has not one friend 
in this place.' " 

In the years that followed Audubon was often reduced 
to absolute poverty, and had to fall back on painting the 
portraits of the people for money with which to go on. 
Once he drew near Meadville, Pennsylvania, with a com- 
panion when they found themselves in this strait. Audubon 
says of it in his Autobiography : " We had now only one 
dollar and fifty cents. No time was to be lost. We put our 
luggage and ourselves under the roof of a tavern keeper, 
known by the name of J. F. Smith, at the sign of the 
' Travellers' Rest,' and soon after took a walk to survey the 
little village that was to be laid under contribution for our 
support. 

" Putting my portfolio under my arm, and a few good 
credentials in my pocket, I walked up the main street, look- 
ing to the right and left, examining the different heads which 
occurred, until I fixed my eyes on a gentleman in a store 
who looked as if he might want a sketch. I begged him to 
allow me to sit down. This granted, I remained perfectly 
silent, and he soon asked me what was in that ' portfolio.' 
The words sounded well, and without waiting another in- 
stant I opened it to his view. He was a Hollander, who 
complimented me on the execution of the drawings of birds 
and flowers in my portfolio. 

" Showing him a sketch of the best friend I have in the 
world at present, I asked him if he would like one in the 
same style of himself. He not only answered in the affirma- 
tive, but assured me that he would exert himself in pro- 
curing as many more customers as he could. I thanked him, 

260 



I&5 
AUDUBON 



and returned to the * Travellers' Rest ' with a hope that to- 
morrow might prove propitious. 

" Supper was ready, and we began our meal. I was 
looked on as a missionary priest, on account of my hair, 
which in those days flowed loosely on my shoulders. I was 
asked to say grace, which I did with a fervent spirit. 

" Next morning I visited the merchant, and succeeded 
in making a sketch of him that pleased him highly. While 
working at him the room became crowded with the village 
aristocracy. Some laughed, while others expressed their 
wonder, but my work went on. My sitter invited me to 
spend the evening with him, which I did, and joined him in 
some music on the flute and violin. I returned to my com- 
panion with great pleasure ; and you may judge how much 
that pleasure was increased when I found that he also had 
made two sketches. Having written a page or two of our 
journals, we retired to rest. With our pockets replenished 
we soon afterwards left for Pittsburg." 

In 1824 Audubon returned to Philadelphia, and there 
met Sully, the painter. He says of the visit : " I purchased 
a new suit of clothes, and dressed myself with extreme neat- 
ness; after which I called on Dr. Mease, an old friend. I 
was received with kindness, and was introduced to a gentle- 
man named Earle, who admired my drawings. I was also 
introduced to several artists, who paid me pleasant atten- 
tions, and I obtained entrance to the Philadelphia Athe- 
naeum and Philosophical Library. I was fortunate in obtain- 
ing an introduction to the portrait painter, Sully, a man after 
my own heart, and who showed me great kindnesses. He 
was a beautiful singer, and an artist whose hints and advice 
were of great service to me." 

261 



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THE HALL OF FAME 



m 



He returned again to the West, and afterwards to New 
Orleans, from which he sailed April 26, 1826, for England. 
The sacrifices and hard work which were endured both by 
Audubon and his wife in order to make this voyage pos- 
sible, were almost incredible. No man ever had a grander 
wife or one who was more devoted to her husband's interests 
than Audubon. He could never have achieved his success 
without her aid. In England he opened up a subscription 
book for his great work. In that day an expensive work 
such as Audubon's was, could only be brought out by sub- 
scription, and it was a slow process. 

Often he was entirely out of money, and he could only 
keep the work going by painting and selling his pictures 
from day to day. He did beautiful work and worked very 
rapidly. The following, taken from his diary, is a sample 
of scores of pages which tell the story of how he succeeded 
in bringing out his great masterpiece which made him im- 
mortal. He says : 

" At that time I painted all day, and sold my work dur- 
ing the dusky hours of evening, as I walked through the 
Strand and other streets where the Jews reigned ; popping in 
and out of Jew-shops or any others, and never refusing the 
offers made me for the pictures I carried fresh from the easel. 
Startling and surprising as this may seem, it is nevertheless 
true, and one of the curious events of my most extraordinary 
life. Let me add here, that I sold seven copies of the 
' Entrapped Otter ' in London, Manchester, and Liverpool, 
besides one copy presented to my friend Mr. Richard Rath- 
bone. In other pictures, also, I have sold from seven to ten 
copies, merely by changing the course of my rambles ; and 
strange to say, that when in after years and better times I 

262 



AUDUBON 



called on the different owners to whom I had sold the copies, 
I never found a single one in their hands. And I recollect 
that once, through inadvertence, when I called at a shop 
where I had sold a copy of the picture, the dealer bought the 
duplicate at the same price he had given for the first ! What 
has become of all those pictures ?" 

The great expense connected with bringing out such a 
work made it necessary to set the price at a thousand dollars 
a set, and considering the scarcity of money in those days it 
is not too much to say that ten thousand dollars a set now 
would not begin to be as expensive as one thousand was 
at that time. In 1830 the first volume appeared, consisting 
of a hundred colored plates, and representing ninety-nine 
varieties of birds. The volume excited great enthusiasm 
everywhere. The King of France and the King of England 
inscribed their names to his list of subscribers. The great 
learned societies of London and Paris elected Audubon to 
their membership, and such famous naturalists as Cuvier and 
Humboldt became his friends. 

The entire work was not issued until 1839. Prepara- 
tion for the later volumes required three years more of ex- 
ploration, but now things were made easier for him. The 
Government of the United States placed a vessel at his dis- 
posal in which to study the birds on the Coast of Florida. 
Returning to New York, he purchased a beautiful residence 
on the shores of the Hudson, which was then beyond the 
city limits but has long since become a part of the great city 
itself. Here he prepared for the press an edition of his 
immortal work upon smaller paper, in seven volumes, which 
was completed in 1844. 

He was now sixty-five years of age, but his natural 
263 






THE HALL OF FAME 




vigor appeared to be in no degree abated. Parke Godwin, 
who knew him well at that time, described him as possessing 
all the sprightliness and vigor of a young man. He was tall, 
and remarkably well formed, and there was in his counte- 
nance a singular blending of innocence and animation. His 
head was exceedingly remarkable. " The forehead high," 
says Mr. Godwin, " arched and unclouded ; the hairs of the 
brow prominent, particularly at the root of the nose, which 
was long and aquiline ; chin prominent, and mouth character- 
ized by energy and determination. The eyes were dark gray, 
set deeply in the head, and as restless as the glance of an 
eagle." His manners were extremely gentle, and his con- 
versation full of point and spirit. 

Still unsatisfied, he undertook in his old age a new work 
on the quadrupeds of America, for which he had gathered 
much material in his various journeys. Again he took to the 
woods, accompanied, however, now by his two sons, Victor 
and John, who had inherited much of their father's talent 
and zeal. 

Returning to his home on the banks of the Hudson, he 
proceeded leisurely to prepare his gatherings for the press, 
assisted always by his sons and other friends. " Sur- 
rounded," he wrote, " by all the members of my dear family, 
enjoying the affection of numerous friends, who have never 
abandoned me, and possessing a sufficient share of all that 
contributes to make life agreeable, I lift my grateful eyes 
toward the Supreme Being, and feel that I am happy." 

He did not live to complete his work upon the quad- 
rupeds. Attacked by disease in his seventy-first year, which 
was the year 185 1, he died so peacefully that it was more 
like going to sleep than death. 

264 



■fmi 






ml 









Mary Lyon (20 votes) 
Charlotte S. Cushman (13 votes) 



Martha Washington (14 votes) 
Dorothea Dix (12 votes) 



FAMOUS WOMEN WHO WERE NOMINATED BUT NOT ELECTED 



(266) 




im^^ 



fa 
III 



J 




CHAPTER XXVI. 
JAMES KENT 

" We ought not to separate the science of public lazv 
from that of ethics. States or bodies politic are to be con- 
sidered as moral persons having a public will capable and 
free to do right and wrong." Inscription on the tablet 

ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF JamES KENT IN THE HaLL OE 

Fame. 



I AMES KENT was born in Putnam County, New 
York, July 31, 1763. One of his memories was of 
the first evening he essayed to read in the spelHng book 
the paragraph, " Hold fast in the Lord," etc., and of the joy 
which it gave to his mother. He was sent to Norwalk to 
school when he had reached the mature age of five years, 
and here he lived with his grandfather till the spring of 
1772. Some four years were occupied in these early studies, 
and in innocent and youthful sports. In his Autobiography, 
Judge Kent says, " The government of my grandfather was 
pretty strict, and his family, after the manner of the day, 
was orderly, quiet, and religious." 

In July, 1772, he went to an uncle's in Pawling Precinct, 
where he was to study Latin. The next year, in April, 1773, 
he was sent to Danbury to the Latin School conducted by 
the Rev. Ebenezer Baldwin, who was not only a distiguished 

267 





THE HALL OF FAME 



*^**-<Tfa 




preacher, but a fine scholar. He remained here until 1776, 
when Mr. Baldwin died. For still a year longer he per- 
severed under different teachers at Stratfield and then at 
Newtown, until ready for college in 1777. He then entered 
Yale, which he calls New Haven College, 

Practically all his life after his babyhood had been spent 
away from home in study. We can well believe him when 
he says in his autobiography : 

" During this continual residence abroad, the seasons 
with me of unbounded transport and romantic felicity were 
my periodical visits at home at my father's house, either at 
Fredericksburg, or at Compo, in Fairfield. Nothing could 
equal the delightful pleasures of such periods, when I was 
freed from restraints, and books, and tasks, and could roam 
with my brother from one juvenile play or amusement to 
another, in rapid activity. Perhaps these incidents of life 
are not so much noticed as they ought to be, but I can, from 
experience, declare that these home visits were the most joy- 
ful, and my returns from thence to my studies, for a little 
while, the most distressing periods of my youthful life. And 
this passion for home lasted till I left for college; then the 
impression grew fainter, and my return to college ceased to 
be painful and grew to be pleasant." 

Concerning his college course, he writes these brief 
lines : 

" My four years residence at New Haven College were 
distinguished by nothing material in the memoranda of my 
life. I had the reputation of being quick to learn, and of 
being industrious, and full of emulation. I surpassed most 
of my class in historical and belles-lettres learning, and was 
full of youthful vivacity and ardor; I was amazingly regu- 

268 






KENT 



lar, decorous, and industrious, and, in my last year, received 
a large share of the esteem and approbation of the president 
and tutors. I left New Haven, September, 1781, clothed 
with college honors and a very promising reputation." 

Two months after leaving college, young Kent was 
placed by his father in a law office in Poughkeepsie, the 
county town of Dutchess. A certain Judge Benson was his 
instructor. He gives an interesting and suggestive para- 
graph in his Autobiographical notes to this time : 

" My fellow students, who were more gay and gallant, 
thought me very odd and dull in my tastes, but out of five of 
them, four died in middle life, drunkards. I was free from 
all dissipation ; I had never danced, played cards, or sported 
with a gun, or drunk anything but water." 

Judge Kent's description of his marriage and the open- 
ing of his law practice, written many years after, is alto- 
gether too good to be put in the language of anybody else. 
He writes : 

" I was admitted to the Bar of the Supreme Court in 
January, 1785, at the age of twenty-one, and then married, 
without one cent of property ; for my education exhausted 
all my kind father's resources and left me in debt four hun- 
dred dollars, which took me two or three years to discharge. 
Why did I marry? I answer that, at the farmer's house 
where I boarded, one of his daughters, a little, modest, 
lovely girl of fourteen, gradually caught my attention, and 
insensibly stole upon my affections, and, before I thought of 
love or knew what it was, I was most violently affected. I 
was twenty-one, and my wife sixteen when we married, and 
that charming and lovely girl has been the idol and solace of 
my life and is now with me in my office, unconscious that I 

269 



G&>J 



THE HALL OF FAME ^ 

am writing this concerning her. We have both had uniform 
health, and the most perfect and unalloyed domestic happi- 
ness, and are both as well now, and in as good spirits, as 
when we married." 

On the 1 2th of April, 1785, Kent entered into partner- 
ship with Gilbert Livingston, for twelve years, with liberty 
to remove out of Dutchess County at any time after six 
years. Of this, he writes : " The great and established run 
of business which he then had, and my embarrassments and 
poverty rendered the connection necessary and advisable. I 
had now reached the age of twenty-one, and the marriage 
state. I soon felt the salutary effects of business, and after 
boarding for a year and a half at my father-in-law's I had 
purchased and repaired and fitted a snug dwelling house in 
town, to which I moved, and began housekeeping." 

Soon after entering on his law practice, James Kent de- 
termined to continue his education. He purchased a French 
dictionary and grammar and gave an hour every day to the 
French language. He spent a part of every day communicat- 
ing a knowledge of and taste for polite English authors to 
his wife. He pursued his Latin education with persistent 
patience and growing enthusiasm. It seems that at that time 
no Greek was taught in New Haven in the regular college 
course for he writes that in December, 1788, he purchased 
a Greek grammar, and learned the letters and grammar, and 
in January following he began the New Testament. I am 
sure that no one reading what he says of the use of his time 
at this period of his life will fail to be impressed with the 
devotion shown in his pursuit of knowledge. Summing up 
his work for the first eight years after his admission to the 
Bar to practice law, he says : 

270 









KENT 







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" In short, by the year 1793, I had become a master of 
the Latin and French languages, and read the authors with 
facihty. Few persons ever pursued classic studies with more 
pleasure and ardor than I did. They opened to me a world 
of learning, of happiness, and of fame, and I flattered my- 
self I had discovered the true time of my most solid hap- 
piness and honor. I gradually adopted a method of dividing 
my time, and adhered to it with exactest punctuality. In the 
morning till half after eight, I read Latin, then Greek until 
ten. Then I gave myself up to law or business until the 
afternoon, and, after two hours attention to French, I con- 
cluded the rest of the day with some English author. This 
division of time has ripened with me into habit, and I adhere 
to it in a great degree still. It enables me to do more reading 
than I otherwise could. No sooner does the mind grow 
weary with one department, but it is instantly relieved by 
introduction to another. Variety seems to refresh and ani- 
mate it." 

Among the friends whom young Kent made during 
these years at Poughkeepsie was Alexander Hamilton. 
Hamilton was seven years Kent's senior, but the intimacy 
between them became very tender. Some years afterwards 
when Kent was a Judge and Hamilton the most brilliant 
lawyer on the circuit, the judges and the attorneys had been 
spending the evening in the hotel parlor. The party broke 
up early, as Judge Kent retired alleging some slight indis- 
position. The night was cold and stormy, and the kindly 
nature of Hamilton was disturbed by the threatened illness 
of his friend. On his retiring, he entered Judge Kent's 
room, armed with an extra blanket, which he tucked care- 
fully around the judge's body, saying: " Sleep warm, little 

271 



}^. 



THE HALL OF FAME 



judge, and get well. What should we do if anything should 
happen to you ? " 

So long as Alexander Hamilton lived, Kent entertained 
for him the highest regard and admiration, and after his 
death, was ever faithful to his memory. The story is told 
how that in his old age when he was Chancellor, he was 
passing through Nassau street. New York, when, glancing 
across the street, he saw Aaron Burr, Hamilton's slayer. 
All his old love for his friend, and his hot indignation against 
Burr came back upon him in an overwhelming flood. He 
could not restrain his impetuosity, but rushed across the 
street, shaking his cane in Burr's face, and exclaiming, with 
a voice choked with passion, " You are a scoundrel, sir ! — 
a scoundrel ! " Burr flushed at the epithet, and was about to 
make a hasty answer ; but time and misfortune had dulled 
the keenness of his temper; and, checking himself, as he 
paused to consider the age and dignity of his adversary, he 
contented himself with raising his hat, and making a sweep- 
ing bow, exclaimed, " The opinions of the learned Chan- 
cellor are always entitled to the highest consideration." He 
then passed on, leaving Chancellor Kent somewhat surprised 
and mortified. 

On the 26th of May, 1790, Kent was elected a member 
of the New York Assembly for Dutchess County, and was 
re-elected in May, 1792. In May, 1793, he removed to New 
York, and began his practice in that city. He did not have 
much practice at first, and besides, his little daughter took 
sick and died, and his father came to him ill with palsy. But 
when things were at the lowest, his reputation as a scholar, 
gained by his hard years of work at Poughkeepsie came to 
his aid. He was elected to a professorship in Columbia 

272 



^^^^' 



KENT 



College, becoming the first professor of law in that institu- 
tion, at a salary of five hundred dollars a year. To a starv- 
ing attorney that five hundred dollars was a great boon. 

In 1796 he was appointed a Master in Chancery by 
Governor Jay, and public honors began to multiply. Within 
less than a year after this appointment as Master of Chan- 
cery, he was elected a member of the Assembly from the 
city of New York, and soon afterwards, the Governor ap- 
pointed him Recorder of the city of New York. The ap- 
pointment was entirely unsolicited, and Kent first heard of it 
through the announcement in the newspapers. The growing 
character of the man is shown in this paragraph from Kent's 
memoranda of the time : 

" I pursued my studies with increased appetite, and en- 
larged my law library very much. But I was overwhelmed 
with office business, for the Governor allowed me to retain 
the other office also, and with these joint duties, and counsel 
business in the Supreme Court, I made a great deal of money 
that year." 

A very interesting story is told of him at this period, 
illustrating his broad research, and remarkable memory. A 
case was tried before him as Recorder, in which Alexander 
Hamilton and Richard Harrison were opposing counsels. 
A nice point was involved, and there was an impression on 
the minds of both attorneys that some old "Reporter" had re- 
corded a case in which a similar point was involved. But 
neither of these eminent counsel was able to give the refer- 
ence. After the attorneys had closed, Kent gave the title of 
this old case, the proper reference, the page of the report, 
and the names of the barristers engaged. He even quoted 
the words of the presiding justice who delivered the opinion. 

273 






mS>^ 






THE HALL OF FAME 




On being asked later how his memory came to be cor- 
rect, Kent replied that on one occasion he was making a 
journey to his home at Poughkeepsie on a sloop — a trip 
which usually occupied about a day — by repeated calms, 
and head winds, he had been eight days in reaching his home. 
By some curious circumstance he found, in the cabin of the 
sloop, a volume of the Reporter in question, and that being 
the only book on the vessel, he had read and re-read every 
portion of it, until he had almost committed the entire volume 
to memory. 

In February, 1798, Kent was appointed a Judge of the 
Supreme Court, and a little later in the season he removed to 
Poughkeepsie, and found himself again in his old home after 
an absence of five years. 

At the end of six years of service as Associate Justice of 
the Supreme Court, Kent was, in 1804, advanced to the posi- 
tion of Chief Justice. 

For the twenty-five years during which Judge Kent 
occupied the Bench of either Supreme Court or of the Court 
of Chancery, he made Albany his home. In February, 1814, 
he was appointed Chancellor. He says of it: 

" The office I took with considerable reluctance. It had 
no charms. The person who left it was stupid, and it is a 
curious fact that for the nine years I was in that ofiice there 
was not a single decision, opinion, or dictum of either of my 
two predecessors cited to me, or even suggested. I took the 
Court as if it had been a new institution, and never before 
known in the United States. I had nothing to guide me, and 
was left at liberty to assume all such English Chancery 
powers and jurisdiction as I thought applicable under our 
Constitution. This gave me grand scope, and I was checked 

274 




KENT 



only by the revision of the Senate or Court of Errors. I 
opened the gates of the Court immediately and admitted, 
almost gratuitously the first year, eighty-five counsellors, 
though I found there had not been thirteen admitted for 
thirteen years before. Business flowed in with a rapid tide." 

On the 31st day of July, 1823, Chancellor Kent reached 
the age of 60 years, and was retired by the limitations of the 
law at that time. On his retirement from official life, ad- 
dresses were presented to him by the Bar of the city of 
New York, of Albany, and of the entire State, expressive of 
their veneration, regard, and gratitude toward him, and 
their sense of the value of his judicial labors during the 
twenty-five years in which he had occupied seats upon the 
Bench. 

He immediately removed to New York City, established 
an office for chamber practice, and was re-elected to his 
former chair of law in Columbia College. 

It was not until he was sixty-three years old that Chan- 
cellor Kent set himself to the task of reducing to writing the 
voluminous mass of the common law of his country, which 
he had been so dilligent in expounding throughout his official 
career. Using his law lectures at Columbia as a basis, he 
amplified them, and began their publication under his own 
supervision, and at his own expense. It was thus that his 
great Commentaries came into being. 

Chancellor Kent lived to a great age, retaining his en- 
thusiasm for books and his literary ardor to the very last. 
As the end drew near he said to his children, '* During my 
early and middle life I was, perhaps, rather sceptical with 
regard to some of the truths of Christianity. . . . But 
of late years my views have altered. . . . My object in 

275 



msf' 



■^?)/ 




Helen Hunt Jackson (3 votes) Kmma Willard (4 votes) 

LUCRETIA MOTT (11 votes) 

Maria Mitchell (7 votes) Elizabeth Seton (no votes) 



FAMOUS WOMEN WHO WERE NOMINATED BUT NOT ELECTED 



(278) 




BEECHER 



CHAPTER XXVII. 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 

" // matters little to me zuhat school of theology rises 
or falls so only that Christ may rise in all his Father's glory 
full orbed upon the darkness of this world." Inscription 

ON THE TABLET ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OE HeNRY WaRD 

Beecher IN THE Hall of Fame. 



HENRY WARD BEECHER was born in Litchfield, 
Connecticut, June 24, 1813. His father. Dr. Lyman 
Beecher, was one of the most noted of New Eng- 
land clergyman of his day. Henry Ward was the eighth of 
a family of ten children, and at the time of his birth the 
father's salary was only eight hundred dollars a year, so 
that it was rather hard to make the ends meet. Henry's 
mother died when he was three years old. Litchfield was a 
mountain town, where winter lasted nearly six months in 
the year, and where it was easy to learn lessons of self-re- 
liance. Henry Ward was a vigorous lad, and Harriet 
Beecher Stowe relates that at nine years of age, in a time of 
winter drought, he harnessed a horse to a sledge, with a bar- 
rel lashed thereon, and went off alone three miles over the 
icy top of the town hill, to dip up and bring home a barrel 
of water from a distant spring. So far from taking this as 
a hardship, he undertook it with chivalric pride. His only 

279 



:m 



THE HALL OF FAME 



trial in the case was the humiliation of being positively com- 
manded by his careful stepmother to wear his overcoat; he 
departed obedient, but with tears of mortification freezing on 
his cheeks, for he had recorded a heroic vow to go through 
a whole winter without once wearing an overcoat. 

For education, technically, so-called, there were small 
advantages. His earliest essay at letters was to walk over 
to West street, to a Widow Kilbourn's, where he sat daily on 
a bench kicking his heels in idleness, and said his letters 
twice in the day, and was for so long out of the way of the 
grown folks, which was considered a main point in a child's 
schooling. There was a tinner's shop hard by, and the big 
girls, some of them, contrived to saw off some of his long 
golden curls with tin shears contrived from the fragments 
cast out of the shop. The child was annoyed, but dared not 
complain to any purpose, till the annoyance being stated at 
home, it was concluded that the best way to abate it was to 
cut off all the curls altogether, and with the loss of these 
he considered his manhood to commence. 

Next, a small, unpainted, district school-house being 
erected within a stone's throw of the parsonage, he graduated 
from Ma'am Kilbourn's thither. The children of all the 
farming population in the neighborhood gathered there. 
The exercises consisted in daily readings of the Bible and 
the Columbian Orator, in elementary exercises in arithmetic, 
and handwriting. The ferule and a long flexible hickory 
switch were the insignia of office of the school-mistress. No 
very striking early results were the outcome of this teaching. 
Henry Ward was not marked out by the prophecies of 
partial friends for any brilliant future. 

One of Henry's greatest trials was the Catechism. His 
280 




m 



thoroughly conscientious stepmother held strictly to the 
Sunday lessons, including the Catechism. Mrs. Stowe tells 
us that for Henry Ward this was the bitterest hour of the 
week. 

The other children memorized readily and were brilliant 
reciters, but Henry, blushing, stammering, confused and 
hopelessly miserable, stuck fast on some sand-bank of what 
is required or forbidden by this or that commandment, his 
mouth choking up with the long words which he hopelessly 
miscalled ; was sure to be accused of idleness or inattention, 
and to be solemnly talked to, which made him look more 
stolid and miserable than ever, but appeared to have no effect 
in quickening his dormant faculties. 

When he was ten years old, he was a stocky, strong, 
well-grown boy, loyal in duty, trained in unquestioning 
obedience, inured to patient hard work, inured also to the 
hearing and discussing of all the great theological problems 
of Calvinism, which were always reverberating in his hear- 
ing ; but as to any mechanical culture, in an extremely back- 
ward state — a poor writer, a miserable speller, with a thick 
utterance, and a bashful reticence which seemed like stolid 
stupidity. 

He was now placed at a private school in the neighbor- 
ing town of Bethlehem, under the care of the Rev. Mr. Land- 
don, to commence a somewhat more careful course of study. 
Here an incident occurred which showed that the boy, even at 
that early age, felt a mission to defend opinions. A forward 
schoolboy, among the elder scholars, had got hold of Paine' s 
Age of Reason, and was flourishing largely among the boys 
with objections to the Bible, drawn therefrom. Henry 
privately looked up Watson's Apology, studied up the sub- 

281 



THE HALL OF FAME 



ject, and challenged a debate with the big boy, in which he 
came off victorious by the acclamation of his schoolfellows. 

When Henry was twelve years old, his father moved to 
Boston, and he was put into the Boston Latin School. This 
was a perfect Desert of Sahara for the vigorous youth, who 
loved the country, and everything that was fresh and green 
and alive. For relief he turned to reading biographies and 
travels, and among these the Voyages of Captain Cook, until 
he determined that he would run away to sea. He actually 
made up his bundle and went down to the wharf, but his 
tender heart failed him, and he decided he must not leave 
his father without any notice. So he wrote a letter announc- 
ing to a brother that he had decided to remain no longer at 
school, but to go to sea, and if not permitted he should go 
without permission. He very carefully dropped this letter 
where his father would pick it up. Dr. Beecher put it in his 
pocket, and said nothing at the time, but the next day asked 
Henry to help him saw wood. 

The woodpile was Lyman Beecher's favorite debating 
ground, and Henry Ward felt complimented by the invita- 
tion, as implying manly companionship. After a little, the 
conversation began in this wise: 

" Let us see," said the Doctor, " Henry, how old are 



" Almost fourteen ! " 

" Bless me ! how boys do grow ! — Why, it's almost time 
to be thinking what you are going to do." 

" Yes — I want to go to sea." 

" To sea ! Of all things ! Well, well ! After all, why 
not? — Of .course you don't want to be a common sailor. 
You want to get into the navy ? " 

282 





" Yes, sir, that's what I want." 

" But not merely as a common sailor, I suppose ? " 

" No, sir, I want to be midshipman, and after that com- 
modore." 

" I see," said the Doctor, cheerfully, " Well, Henry, in 
order for that, you know, you must begin a course of mathe- 
matics, and study navigation and all that." 

" Yes, sir, I am ready." 

" Well then, I'll send you up to Amherst next week, to 
Mount Pleasant, and then you'll begin your preparatory 
studies, and if you are well prepared, I presume 1 can make 
interest to get you an appointment." 

And so he went to Mount Pleasant in Amherst, Mass., 
and Lyman Beecher said shrewdly, " I shall have that boy 
in the ministry yet." 

And sure enough, the very first year, at a time of great 
revival, Henry Ward came under such deep religious impres- 
sions that his whole outlook for life was changed. The naval 
scheme vanished, and the pulpit opened before him as his 
natural sphere. 

In college Henry Ward was known as a reformer. He 
and his associates formed a union of merry good fellows, 
who were to have glorious fun, but to have it only by 
honorable and permissible means. They voted down "scrap- 
ping" in the lecture rooms, and hazing of students; they 
voted down gambling and drinking, and every form of 
secret vice, and made the class rigidly temperate and pure. 
Young Beecher had received from family descent a 
thoroughly healthy nervous organization. In no part of his 
life did he ever use tobacco or ardent spirits. All his public 
labors were performed without any stimulant whatever. 

283 




^^ ^^W^-^^^^'^S^^^^ 



1 



j«v3*?i'Si?;'?'/ 






After finishing his college course, Henry Ward Beecher 
went to Lane Seminary near Cincinnati to study theology, 
and immediately after finishing his theological course he 
married and settled at Lawrenceburg, a little town on the 
Ohio River not far from Cincinnati. Here he preached in 
a small church, did all the work of the parish sexton, making 
his fires, trimming his lamps, sweeping his house, and ring- 
ing his bell. 

From Lawrenceburg he was soon invited to Indian- 
apolis, the capital of Indiana, where he labored with great 
success for eight years. It was while in Indianapolis that 
his preaching began to draw listeners as a new style. Its 
studies in human nature, its searching analysis of men and 
their ways drew large throngs. 

His fame spread through the country, and multitudes, 
wherever he went, flocked to hear him. Still, Mr. Beecher 
did not satisfy himself. To be a popular preacher, to be well 
spoken of, to fill up his church, did not after all satisfy his 
ideal. It was necessary that the signs of an Apostle should 
be wrought in him by his having the power given to work 
the great, deep and permanent change which unites the soul 
to God. It was not till about the third year of his ministry 
that he found this satisfaction in a great revival of religion 
in Terre Haute, which was followed by a series of such re- 
vivals through the State, in which he was for many months 
unceasingly active. When he began to see whole communi- 
ties moving together under a spiritual impulse, the grog- 
shops abandoned, the votaries of drunkenness, gambling and 
dissipation reclaimed, reformed, and sitting at the feet of 
Jesus, clothed and in their right mind, he felt that at last he 
had attained what his soul thirsted for, and that he could 

284 



i>^m^i 






*:-^ 





wm^it 



BEECHER 





enter into the joy of the Apostles when they returned to 
Jesus, saying, " Lord, by thy name even the devils were 
made subject unto us." 

About this time, Mr. Beecher asked a critical friend who 
had come to hear him preach, "What sort of a style am I 

forming?" 

" Well, I should call it the ' tropical style,' was the 

reply. 

Reports of the popularity and renown of young Beecher, 
of Indianapolis, had already aroused Eastern interest in the 
man and in his preaching, and through the influence of his 
friend and advocate, Mr. William P. Cutter, of New York, 
Mr. Beecher, who was then in that city, was asked to preside 
at the opening of the new Congregational Church, in Brook- 
lyn, May i6, 1847. Mr. Beecher's discourses produced 
a strong impression upon his audience, and at a subsequent 
meeting in June, 1847, at which the name of Plymouth 
Church was adopted, he was elected unanimously by the 
Society to the pastorate, and an immediate invitation was 
given him to assume the position. After two months con- 
sideration he accepted, and preached his first sermon Sun- 
day morning, October 10, 1847. 

On this occasion he declared his standpoint and views 
on questions of national debate, his position with regard to 
slavery, war, temperance, and other reforms, and defined the 
purposes of his preaching, of which the chief was, " that it 
should be a ministry of Christ." 

Plymouth Church pulpit soon became a national plat- 
form and the sermons and addresses that went forth from 
there began to tell not only all around the nation but all 

around the world. 

285 




THE HALL OF FAME 

3P 



In 1863 Henry Ward Beecher visited Europe for his 
health, and during his absence did the Republic a service 
which has perhaps, in its way, been unequalled by any 
citizen. It was at a time when the leading people in 
England were against us, and when the causes of the 
Union were gravely misunderstood. The few friends of 
America besought Beecher to speak. He at first declined, 
but afterwards felt it his duty to make a campaign in behalf 
of his country. 

He therefore prepared himself for what he always felt 
to have been the greatest effort and severest labor of his life, 
to plead the cause of his country at the bar of the civilized 
world. A series of engagements was formed for him to 
speak in the principal cities of England and Scotland. 

He opened Friday, October 9th, in the Free Trade Hall, 
in Manchester, to a crowded audience of 6,000 people. The 
emissaries of the South had made every preparation to excite 
popular tumult, to drown his voice and prevent his being 
heard. Here he treated the subject on its merits, as being 
the great question of the rights of working men, and brought 
out and exposed the nature of the Southern confederacy as 
founded in the right of the superior to oppress the inferior 
race. Notwithstanding the roar and fury and interruptions 
he persevered and said his say, and the London Times next 
day printed it all, with a column or two of abuse ! 

October 13th, he spoke in the city hall at Glasgow, dis- 
cussing slavery and free labor as comparative systems. The 
next day, October 14th, he spoke in Edinburgh in a great 
public meeting in the Free Church Assembly Hall, where he 
discussed the existing American conflict from the historical 
point of view. 

286 



This was by far the most quiet and uninterrupted meet- 
ing of any. But the greatest struggle of all was, of course, 
at Liverpool. At Liverpool, where Clarkson was mobbed, 
and came near being thrown off the wharf and drowned, 
there was still an abundance of that brutal, noisy population, 
which slavery always finds it useful to stir up to bay and 
bark when she is attacked. 

Mr. Beecher had a firmly knit, vigorous physical frame, 
inherited from many generations of stalwart Yankees, re- 
nowned for strength, and it stood him in good service. In 
giving an account afterwards, he said, " I had to speak ex- 
tempore on subjects the most delicate and difficult as between 
our two nations where even the shading of my words was 
of importance, and yet I had to outscheme a mob and drown 
the roar of a multitude. It was like driving a team of run- 
away horses, and making love to a lady at the same time." 

For the last thirty years of his life, Henry Ward Beecher 
was one of the great figures on the lecture platform in the 
land. He wrote largely for the press, and his books reached 
enormous audiences. He held his great audiences in Ply- 
mouth Church until the end, and left behind him a great 
church, carrying on magnificent mission enterprises, and the 
fact that the church and its mission work has grown larger 
rather than diminished since his going away, is the strongest 
testimony to the faithful work which he performed there. 
After a brief illness, he died at Brooklyn, on March 8, 1887. 




THE HALL OF FAME 



CHAPTER XXVHL 
JOSEPH STORY 

" The founders of the Constitution, zvith profound wis- 
dom laid the corner-stone of our national Republic in the 
permanent independence of the judicial establishment." In- 
scription ON THE TABLET ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OE 

Joseph Story in the Hall oe Fame. 

JOSEPH STORY was born at Marblehead, Massachu- 
setts, September 18, 1779. His father was one of 
the Yankee Indians who helped to make King George 
a cup of tea with a whole cargo in Boston harbor. 

Joseph Story had the happy good fortune to be born 
into a family very charitable in its views for the Puritans 
of the time. His memory of his father was specially happy, 
as he was a man who joined with the children in all their 
merriment and sports. 

As a boy, Joseph Story was noted for his curious power 
of observation. When but two or three years of age his 
favorite occupation was to sit on the doorstep, and watch 
the people and the happenings in the street, and he was 
always able to give a clear account of everything that 
passed. As he grew up, this habit of observation and desire 
of knowledge increased, and he attracted the notice of those 
who knew him by the attention he showed as a listener. 

288 






Wherever there was a group of g-entlemen engaged in 
conversation, he was sure to be at their side, Hstening with 
mouth and ears wide open. One of his favorite haunts was 
the barber shop, which, as the gentlemen of the town daily 
frequented it in order to have their heads powdered accord- 
ing to the fashion of the time, became a sort of exchange, 
where the politics of the day were warmly discussed, and the 
newspapers taken. Here, therefore, whenever he could slip 
away, he would betake himself, and having made friends 
with the barber by doing him many little offices, he was 
permitted to stay and listen to the news and the warm 
political discussions which there took place. And as the 
Revolutionary War was then but just ended, there was nec- 
essarily in their conversation many reminiscences of the 
" battles, sieges, fortunes they had passed," and much that 
was thrilling to an enthusiastic boy. So deeply did these 
conversations sink into his mind and engross his thoughts, 
that they haunted his sleep and were recounted in his 
dreams, causing him sometimes to scream out with excite- 
ment, so as to awaken all who were near him. 

Often in later life he recurred to the hours spent in 
the barber's shop, and pictured the debates and the stories 
he heard, and the customs and manners of the gentlemen of 
the old school, and the interest and delight mingled with 
a certain awe with which he used to listen. This handsome, 
florid boy, with long auburn ringlets, which curled down to 
his shoulders, and a face full of animation, could not fail to 
attract much notice, and frequently, at the instigation of the 
barber and the gentlemen, he would mount the table and 
declaim pieces he had committed to memory, and even at 
times would make prayers. 

28g 



■^^; 




The testimony of his old acquaintances in Marblehead 
is uniform as to his curious craving for knowledge of every 
kind while he was a small boy. Without being intrusive, 
he was anxious to hear and understand all that passed, and 
was as devoted a listener as he afterwards became a talker, 
which is saying a good deal. 

As a boy, he was ardent in his sports and showed the 
same determination that afterwards characterized him. He 
never would take a subordinate part in the games at school, 
insisting either on being principal in every game where 
there was a head, or declining to join in it. An anecdote 
illustrating this peculiarity is related. While he was a 
young boy, his schoolmates formed a military company, and 
one of them proposed to him to take the part of lieutenant, 
but this he refused, insisting that unless he could be cap- 
tain, he would have nothing to do with the company. He 
was accordingly chosen captain, and on the first parade day, 
treated his tin-sword company at his father's house. This 
was his first and greatest military experience; for although 
in early manhood he was induced to accept the commission 
of lieutenant in the militia service, he soon resigned, and it 
was ever after an unfailing source of jest to him and to his 
friends. He used jestingly to relate the loss his country 
had sustained by his resignation, and to pretend an offended 
pride that his military genius was not recognized. 

His brother, writing of this time says : " His disposi- 
tion was always kind and conciliating, his feelings tender, 
and easily affected with any unkindness offered to others. 
He was a great lover of his books when very young, and 
if, at any time, dinner was not ready at the school hour, 
he would take a piece of bread in his hand and run off with 







STORY 




it to school, so as to be among the first." This ambition and 
love of study seem to have been greatly fostered by his 
mother, who was constantly stimulating him to be second 
to none, and never suffered his emulation to slumber. She 
herself says, that she used to say to him: " Now, Joe, I've 
sat up and tended you many a night when you were a child, 
and don't you dare not to be a great man." 

That he was brave and generous as a boy, the follow- 
ing anecdote, told by his sister, will show : " When he 
was about eleven years of age, one of his schoolmates had 
done a cruel act, which came to the ears of the master in 
such a way as to implicate Joseph, who was entirely inno- 
cent, although he knew the actor. The master, therefore, 
sent for Joseph to examine him. But before he went he 
was besought by several of the girls not to divulge the name 
of the real offender, lest the latter should be expelled from 
the school in disgrace. Upon examination it appeared that 
Joseph was innocent, but that he knew who had committed 
the act, and he was ordered to tell his name. This he 
respectfully, but decidedly, refused to do, and in consequence 
received, in the presence of all his schoolmates, a severe 
flogging, to which he submitted without flinching." 

Of his early education, we have this brief account in 
his Autobiography : 

" Just as I was fifteen years of age, in the autumn of 
1794, an event occurred, which had some influence upon 
my character and destiny. I was preparing to enter Har- 
vard College the next year, and having mastered the usual 
preparatory studies in Latin, and that most discouraging 
book, the Westminster Greek Grammar, I Vv^as beginning to 
study the Gospel of John, with a view to make an easy 

291 






THE HALL OF FAME 



^^- 





transition into Greek. Some boyish affair, I have quite 
forgotten what, induced me to chastise a lad belonging to 
the school, who boarded with my instructor, and this reach- 
ing the ears of the latter, he determined, under another 
pretense, to seek an occasion in school to punish me for the 
transaction. 

" Some very slight peccadillo occurred on my part. I 
was called up in the presence of the whole school and 
beaten very severely with a ferule on my hands. I bore it 
without shrinking, and submitted without resistance, being 
at that time too old to cry like a little boy, and having some 
pride to meet the punishment manfully. The schoolmaster 
was a man of violent and irascible temper when aroused, 
and seeing my calmness and firmness he struck me in his 
rage, I believe, as many as a hundred blows on my hands, 
until the agony was so great that I could no longer restrain 
myself from crying aloud. I was then ordered to my seat, 
and remained there suffering much pain until school was 
dismissed. I never can think of this brutal and coarse 
treatment by this man, who was a clergyman, without a 
feeling of resentment and disgust. 

" A few years after, when I had arrived at manhood, 
he took occasion to express his regret at the transaction, his 
consciousness that he was in the wrong, and my total guilt- 
lessness of any thing to justify the punishment. He ad- 
mitted that is was a retaliation for the chastisement I had 
inflicted on his boarder, and that his passions had carried 
him beyond the bounds of moderation. I forgave him, 
heartily forgave him. But though in other respects a de- 
serving man, I never desired to have any communion with 
him beyond the mere formalities of common respect. 

292 




STORY 




mi^^r^ 





" With the approbation of my father, I immediately 
left the academy. But it was a case full of embarrassment. 
There was no other school in the town in which the learned 
languages were taught; and with so large a family the ex- 
penses attendant upon an education at a distance were not 
to be overlooked. Fortunately, the principal town school- 
master (whom I shall always remember with gratitude and 
respect) was acquainted with Latin, and the Greek of the 
New Testament, and he undertook to superintend my studies 
in those languages in the common books. It was in the 
autumn, and I formed the sudden resolution to prepare myself 
so as to be offered for admission at Harvard College in the 
ensuing January vacation as a Freshman." This was a tre- 
mendous contract, but he carried it through all right. On 
arriving in Cambridge however, he was told that he must 
also pass an examination on six months of the Freshman 
year. This aroused all the pluck there was in the boy. He 
only had six weeks in which to perform the task, but he won 
his victory and passed his examinations without difficulty. 

Joseph Story entered Harvard in January, 1795. He 
was very popular in college, was full of animal spirits and 
made many friends. Immediately after leaving college, he 
began the study of law in the office of Mr. Samuel Sewall, 
in Marblehead. After remaining in Mr. Sewall's office a 
little more than a year, he removed to Salem, in January 
1801, upon the appointment of Mr. Sewall as one of the 
justices of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and entered 
the office of Mr. Samuel Putnam, who afterwards occupied 
a seat upon the same Bench. A New England lady writing 
of him at this time pays him a very high compliment, in 
the following description: 

293 



i#^?| 







THE HALL OF FAME 



Vi 




" He was a very handsome young man, was always 
dressed like a gentleman, and had the air and manners of 
one. He was a great and general favorite with young 
ladies, who always felt flattered by his attentions. This 
occasioned him the envy of some of the gentlemen, and was 
doubtless the cause of many of the annoyances he met with. 
I have seen him in company when they would treat him 
with marked neglect and refuse to shake hands with him. 
But this had no effect on him. He preserved his serenity 
and cheerfulness, and any one who could interpret his feelings 
from his countenance saw that he pitied and forgave them. 
Anger was a passion which could never gain admittance 
to his breast. He was always animated in society, — some- 
times gay, but never boisterous. In all my intercouse with 
him, I cannot recollect that he ever said or did any thing 
I could have wished unsaid or undone. Perfect propriety 
was one of his distinguishing traits. In short, when I seek 
for his faults, I can find none. 

" He possessed great personal courage and presence of 
mind. Once as we were driving from Marblehead in a 
dark evening, a thunderstorm came suddenly up. He was 
fond of driving very high-spirited horses, and had one at 
this time. It was so dark that we could only see the horse 
during the flashes of lightning, which were so sharp as to 
frighten the animal extremely. We were in great danger, 
but he appeared so perfectly calm that it was difficult to 
realize how great it was." 

In July, 1 80 1, young Story was admitted to the Essex 
Bar, and opened his office in Salem. His politics at the 
time put him in the minority, and threatened to interfere 
with his practice. At this time Judge Sewall, his former 

294 







preceptor, was a Federalist, and strongly opposed to young 
Story on account of his Republicanism. But on one occa- 
sion, at a dinner party, while discussing his course with 
Chief Justice Parsons, he said, " It is in vain to attempt to 
put down young Story. He will rise, and I defy the whole 
Bar and Bench to prevent him." 

On Sunday, December 9, 1804, Joseph Story was 
married to Mary Lynde Oliver, to whom he was greatly 
devoted. But after a few months his wife's health began 
to decline, and she died June 22, 1805. After the death of 
his wife, he sought relief from painful thoughts by severe 
and exclusive labor in his profession, and rapidly advanced 
in reputation and influence at the Bar. 

Story was elected to the Legislature of Massachusetts 
in 1805 to represent the town of Salem, and at once took 
the position of a leader. 

In 1808, he was married to Miss Sarah Waldo Wet- 
more, and in the same year was elected to Congress, where he 
entered upon his duties in January, 1809. Story declined a 
re-election to Congress, but was almost immediately re- 
elected to the Massachusetts Legislature where he was 
elected as Speaker of the House. 

November 18, 181 1, Story was appointed Associate 
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. A 
remarkable event, when we remember that he was at that 
time only thirty-two years of age. The appointment came 
altogether as a surprise, and was without any solicitation on 
Story's part. As the annual salary was then only three 
thousand five hundred dollars a year, and as his professional 
income was from five to six thousand dollars a year, the 
acceptance of the office was no slight pecuniary sacrifice. 

295 




3 



u3 1; 



O » 

> - 



CHAPTER XXIX. 
JOHN ADAMS 

"As a government so popular can be supported only 
by universal knozvlcdge and virtue, it is the duty of all ranks 
to promote the means of education as zvell as true religion, 
purity of manners, and integrity of life." Inscription on 

THE TABLET ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN ADAMS IN 

THE Hale of Fame. 



J 



|OHN ADAMS, second President of the United States, 
was born October lo, 1735, at Braintree, Massachu- 
setts. We know scarcely aiaything of his early child- 
hood. John T. Morse, Jr.,. in a recent biography, remarks 
that the' boyhood and youth of John Adams are encumbered 
with none of those tedious apocrypha which constitute a 
prophetic atmosphere in the initial chapter of most biog- 
raphies. No one ever dreamed that he was to be a great 
man until he was well advanced in middle age, and even 
then, in the estimation of all persons save himself, he had 
many peers and perhaps a few superiors. 

The first authentic knowledge which we get of John 
Adams comes from his own pen. On November 15, 1755, 
just after his twentieth birthday, and shortly after his grad- 
uation from Harvard College, he began a diary which he 
kept up with more or less regularity for over thirty years. 

299 



THE HALL OF FAME 



In youth John Adams seems to have been a very good 
specimen of the New England Puritan of that day. He 
was not very strait-laced in matters of doctrine, but relig- 
ious by habit and by instinct, rigid in every point of morals, 
conscientious, upright, pure-minded, industrious. John 
Adams was a type of the better man of the day, though 
he grumbles at himself a great deal in his diary, and he 
hits himself some pretty straight blows. In later years, his 
vanity became so pronounced as to be an embarrassment to 
those dealing with him, and he was conscious of this danger 
in his youth, for on one occasion he writes: 

" Vanity, I am sensible, is my cardinal vice and cardinal 
folly." 

As a young man, John Adams seems not to have cher- 
ished any very lofty ambition, or if he did, to have kept it in 
the background. He had quite a time deciding what he 
would be. He was at first very much inclined to the 
ministry, and while he was debating the subject, he obtained 
the position of Master of the Grammar School at Worcester, 
Massachusetts, where he began to teach in the early autumn 
of 1755. During the year, he decided for the law instead. 
On August 21, 1756, he made his decision, and on the next 
day he wrote gravely in his diary : 

" Yesterday I completed a contract with Mr. Putnam 
to study law under his inspection for two years. . . . 
Necessity drove me to this determination, but my inclina- 
tion, I think, was to preach; however, that would not do. 
But I set out with firm resolutions, I think, never to commit 
any meanness or injustice in the practice of law. The study 
and practice of law, I am sure, does not dissolve the obli- 
gations of morality or of religion ; and. although the reason 

300 



'ML/ 



of my quitting divinity was my opinion concerning some 
disputed points, I hope I shall not give reason of offense 
to any in that profession by imprudent warmth." 

He began his law studies August 23, and pursued them 
with such devotion that in October, 1758, he was ready to 
begin business, and made a journey to Boston to consult 
with Jeremiah Gridley, the great Boston lawyer of that day, 
and ask his advice as to the beginning of the practice 
of law. Gridley was very kind to the young man, who 
seems to have approached the elder gentleman with becom- 
ing humility. Adams' diary is the mirror which reflects 
their conversation. 

Among other pieces of advice, the shrewd old lawyer 
gave to the youngster these two : first, " to pursue the 
study of law rather than the gain of it ; pursue the gain of 
it enough to keep out of the briars, but give your main atten- 
tion to the study of it;" second. " not to marry early, for an 
early marriage will obstruct your improvement, and in the 
next place it will involve you in expense." 

On Monday, November 6, the same distinguished 
friend, with a few words of kindly presentation, recom- 
mended Adams to the court for the oath. This formality 
being satisfactorily concluded, says Adams, " I shook hands 
with the Bar, and received their congratulations, and invited 
them over to Stone's to drink some punch, where the most 
of us resorted, and had a very cheerful chat." Through this 
alcoholic christening the neophyte was introduced into the 
full communion of the brethren, and thereafter it only 
remained for him to secure clients. 

John Adams seems to have been able to get business 
from the start. Rut the fees were very small in those days, 

301 



?l#ri?i^): 




and he did not make much money. He followed the first 
part of Gridley's advice to such good purpose that he after- 
wards said: "I believe no lawyer in America ever did 
so much business as J did afterwards, in the seventeen years 
that I passed in practice at the Bar for so little profit." Yet 
this " little profit " was enough to enable him to treat more 
lightly Gridley's second item, for on October 25, 1764, he 
took to himself a wife. The lady was Abigail Smith, 
daughter of William Smith, a clergyman in the neighboring 
town of Weymouth, and of his wife, Elizabeth (Quincy) 
Smith. But the matrimonial venture was far from proving 
an " obstruction to improvement ;" for " by this marriage 
John Adams became allied with a numerous connection of 
families, among the most respectable for their weight and 
influence in the province, and it was immediately perceptible 
in the considerable increase of his professional practice." 

In other respects, also, it was a singularly happy union. 
Mrs. Adams was a woman of unusually fine mind and noble 
character, and proved herself a most able helpmate and 
congenial comrade for her husband, throughout the many 
severe trials as well as in the brilliant triumphs of his long 
career. Not often does fate allot to a great man a domestic 
partner so fit to counsel and sustain as was Abigail Adams, 
whose memory deserves to be, as indeed it still is, held in 
high esteem and admiration. 

In 1774, when John Adams was thirty-eight years old 
and considered one of the best lawyers in Massachusetts, 
he was made one of the five representatives to the First 
Congress of America. His associate members were James 
Bowdoin, Thomas Gushing, Samuel Adams, and Robert 
Treat Paine. A little later he wrote in his diarv : 



:fm^ 










ADAMS 



'" I wander alone and ponder. I muse. I mope. I 
ruminate. I am often in reveries and brown studies. The 
objects before me arc too grand and nmltifarious for my 
comprehension. We have not men fit for the times. We 
are deficient in genius, in education, in travel, in fortune, in 
everything. I feel unutterable anxiety. God grant us wis- 
dom and fortitude ! Should the opposition be suppressed, 
should this country submit, what infamy and ruin ! God 
forbid! Death in any form is less terrible." 

And about the same time he wrote to his friend Warren, 
who had been instrumental in sending him to the Congress, 
as follows : 

" I suppose you sent me there to school. I thank you 
for thinking me an apt scholar, or capable of learning. For 
my own part I am at a loss, totally at a loss what to do 
Vidien we get there, but I hope to be there taught. It 
is to be a school of political prophets, I suppose, a nursery 
of American statesman." 

In 1776, June 7, John Adams was appointed on a 
committee with Thomas Jefferson, Franklin, Sherman and 
Livingston, to draft a document setting for the American 
position in the contest with England. This resulted in the 
Declaration of Independence, which was written by Thomas 
Jetferson. When it came to the matter of writing, the 
Declaration, some civilities were exchanged between Adams 
and Jefferson, each politely requesting the other to undertake 
it. It was finally decided that Jefferson should prepare the 
statement. 

On July 3, John Adams wrote two letters to his wife. 
In one he said: 

" Yesterday the greatest question was decided which 
303 




THE HALL OF FAME 



ever was debated in America, and a greater perhaps never 
was nor will be decided among men." In the other : " The 
second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch 
in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will 
be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great Anni- 
versary Festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day 
of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. 
It ought to be solemnized with pomp, and parade, with 
shows, games, sports, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from 
one end of this continent to the other, from this time for- 
ward for evermore. You will think me transported with 
enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and 
blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this 
Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet 
through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light 
and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all 
the means; and that posterity will triumph in that day's 
transaction, even though we should rue it, which I trust in 
God we shall not." Posterity has selected for its anniversary 
July 4, instead of July 2, though the question was really 
settled on the earlier day. 

In 1777, John Adams, tired out with the work of Con- 
gress, secured permission to return home and take a long 
vacation. He set out from Philadelphia November 11, of 
that year in company with Samuel Adams, to make the 
homeward journey. He at once set himself to work to 
gather up the frayed ends of his law practice. He was in 
the act of arguing an admiralty case in Portsmouth, New 
Hampshire, when a letter reached him, December 3, 1777, 
announcing his appointment as Commissioner at the Court 
of France, wishing him a quick and pleasant voyage, and 

304 




suggesting that he should have his dispatch bags weighted 
ready to sink them instantly in case of capture. He 
accepted the mission the next day, and began to make his 
arrangements. It was by no means a desirable mission, 
but he entered upon it with his usual determination. 

On February 13, 1778, he set sail in the frigate Boston, 
accompanied by his young son, John Quincy Adams. On 
the 20th an English ship of war gave them chase. Adams 
urged the officers and crew to fight desperately, deeming it 
*' more eligible " for himself " to be killed on board the 
Boston or sunk to the bottom in her than to be taken 
prisoner." 

After eighteen months' absence he arrived in Boston 
again August 2, 1779. He had scarcely had time to visit 
his friends and look about him when he was again called 
upon for a similar service. News had been received that 
England might soon be willing to negotiate for peace, and 
in order to lose no time when that moment should arrive, it 
was thought best to have an American envoy prepared to 
treat stationed in Europe, ready for the occasion. John 
Adams was selected for this arduous and responsible posi- 
tion. He accepted the mission regretfully, November 4, 
1779, and on the 13th of the same month put to sea on an 
old frigate that was entirely unseaworthy, but finally landed 
at Ferrol, Spain, with a thousand miles travel by mule-back 
to reach Paris. He remained in Paris until 1780, when he 
made a visit to Holland, doing missionary work with refer- 
ence to financial and other aid from that country, for the 
cause of the patriots. This resulted in his being formally 
installed April 19, 1782, as the Minister of the new Ameri- 
can nation at The Hague. The Dutch bankers, through his 

305 



THE HALL OF FAME 



influence, came forward with loans of money, and a treaty 
of amity and commerce was made with Holland. 

The preliminaries of peace with England were signed 
January 21, 1783. Adams had before this, for months, been 
trying to get home, but was now delayed, and in September, 
1783, had the mingled honor and disappointment of being 
commissioned, in conjunction with Dr. Franklin and Mr. 
Jay, to negotiate a treaty of commerce with Great Britain. 
Fortunately, a little later, in the summer of 1784, his wife 
and daughter arrived, and began to keep house for him, and 
he had a few months of domestic comfort that was very 
dear to him. 

On February 24, 1785, he was appointed Minister to 
Great Britain. It was a very thankless position to occupy 
at that time. English sentiment, especially Court sentiment, 
was bitter against America. His presentation to George HI. 
was private. In the course of his remarks, in addressing the 
King, or rather, at the close of them he said: "I must 
avow to your Majesty that I have no attachment but to my 
own country." Although George III. seemed not to mind 
this at the time, he ever afterwards treated Mr. Adams with 
marked coldness, and publicly turned his back upon Adams 
and Jefferson. As the Court was quick to follow such an 
example on the part of the King, it is easy to imagine that 
John Adams' stay at the Court of St. James was anything 
but agreeable. He remained until April 20, 1788, when he 
set sail for home. 

Almost immediately after his return he was elected 
Vice-President of the United States. At the next Presiden- 
tial Election, Adams was again the candidate of the Federal- 
ist party for Vice-President, and received seventy-seven votes 

306 







4uJ!'— «--* 



CHAPTER XXX. 
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING 

" / think of God as the father and inspirer of the soul ; 
of Christ as its redeemer and model of Christianity as given 
to lighten, perfect and glorify it." Inscription on THE 

TABLET ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF WiEEIAM ElLERY 

Channing in the Hale of Fame. 

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING was born April 
7, 1780, in Newport, Rhode Island, Both the 
father and mother were educated people of fine 
abilities and culture. The family on both sides furnished a 
splendid hereditary background for the production of a man 
not only of high intellectual gifts, but of rare moral quality. 
The earliest description given of William EUery Chan- 
ning is from an aged relative, who says : " I remember him 
as a boy three or four years old, with brilliant eyes, and 
glowing cheeks, and light brown hair falling in curls upon 
his shoulders, dressed in a green velvet jacket, with rufifled 
collar and white underclothes, standing by his mother's side 
on the seat of the pew, and looking around upon the congre- 
gation. I thought him the most splendid child I ever saw." 
His mother's health was very frail, and the children 
were early placed at school, and William was sent when yet 
so }Oung that he was carried in the arms of a colored man. 

308 



■:^ 




^5*ai©fei^ 




Charles F. Thwing Charles VV. Eliot 

Western Reserve Haii'ard 

J. R. Day David Starr Jokdon 

Syracuse Palo Alto 

J. M. Taylok Arthur T. Haj)ley 

Vassar Yale 

W. S. Chaplin Charles C. Harrison 

Washington Pennsylvania 

AViLLiAM De W. Hyue James B. Angell Seth Low 

Bowdoin Michigan Columbia 



H. W. RO(iERS 

Northwestern 



Geo. a. Gates 
Iowa 



A GROUP OF UNIVERSITY AND COLLEGE PRESIDENTS WHO ACTED AS JUDGES 



(309) 



CHANNING 



As William grew older he was disposed, even as a child, 
to be grave and reflective. He was fond of lonely rambles 
on the beach ; liked to go apart into some beautiful scene, 
with no other playmate but his kite, which he delighted in 
flying ; he indulged in reverie and contemplation, and, accord- 
ing to his own statement, owed the tone of his character 
more to the influences of solitary thought than of compan- 
ionship. 

Among his playmates he seems to have been always 
noted for a certain greatness of character. They called him 
" Peacemaker " and " Little King Pepin." He is described 
as having been small and delicate, yet muscular and active, 
with a very erect person, quick movement, a countenance 
that, while sedate, was cheerful, and a singularly sweet 
smile, which he never lost through life. When with com- 
panions he was exuberant in spirits, overflowing with energy, 
ready to join heartily in all amusements, but never boister- 
ous. He was much beloved by the children of the school 
and neighborhood, though even then acting as an exhorter; 
for he used to rebuke among them all profaneness or obscen- 
ity; but this was done with a gentle tone, that manifested 
rather sorrow than anger, and was usually well received. 

His character was thus early marked by mingled 
strength and sweetness, though by some accounts it appears 
that he was by no means free from temper. There was 
sufficient fire latent under his mildness to give him energy. 
On one occasion he flogged a boy larger than himself, who 
had imposed upon a little fellow. Through life, he had an 
unflinching physical as w^ell as moral courage, and seemed 
unconscious of fear. He was an officer in a company of 
boys that marched to salute Count Rochambeau when he 

311 




THE HALL OF FAME 



was on a visit at Newport, making an address, and marshal- 
ing his troops with a spirit that won much admiration. 

Young Channing developed very early a gentle and kind 
disposition in the treatment of animals. After he had grown 
to be a young man and had left college, he wrote : 

" Thanks that I can say I have never killed a bird. I 
would not crush the meanest insect which crawls upon the 
ground. They have the same right to life that I have, they 
received it from the same Father, and I will not mar the 
works of God by wanton cruelty. 

" I can remember an incident in my childhood, which 
has given a turn to my whole life and character. I found a 
nest of birds in my father's field, which held four young 
ones. They had no down when I first discovered them. 
They opened their little mouths as if they were hungry, and 
1 gave them some crumbs which were in my pocket. Every 
day I returned to feed them. As soon as school was done, 
I would run home for some bread, and sit by the nest to see 
them eat, for an hour at a time. They were now feathered, 
and almost ready to fly. When I came one morning, I found 
them all cut up into quarters. The grass around the nest 
was red with blood. Their little limbs were raw and bloody. 
The mother was on a tree, and the father on the wall, 
mourning for their young. I cried, myself, for I was a child. 
1 thought, too, that the parents looked on me as the author 
of their miseries, and this made me still more unhappy. I 
wanted to undeceive them. I wanted to sympathize with 
and comfort them. When I left the field, they followed me 
with their eyes and with mournful reproaches. I was too 
young and too sincere in my grief to make any apostrophes. 
But I can never forget my feelings. The impression will 

312 



IXi^ifew 





y^^-^ 

^^■■j 




CHANNING 

T 



never be worn away, nor can I ever cease to abhor every 
species of inhumanity towards inferior animals." 

Washingfton Allston. the brilliant poet-painter, who was 
a life-long friend of Channing's, wrote lovingly of him after 
his death : 

" I know not that I could better describe him than as 
an open, brave, and generous boy. The characters of boys 
are, I believe, almost always truly estimated by their com- 
panions, — at least morally, though perhaps seldom intellect- 
ually ; and these are generally assigned to the several classes 
of the open or the cunning, the generous or the mean, the 
brave or the cowardly. And I well remember, though he 
was several months my junior (a matter of some importance 
among children), that I always looked up to him even in 
boyhood with respect ; nor can I recall a single circumstance 
that ever weakened that feeling. 

" In our games, he was never known to take any undue 
advantage, but would give way at once, where there was the 
least doubt on the point at issue. And though he was but 
scantily provided with pocket-money his little chance sup- 
plies seemed, in the school-boy phrase, always to ' burn in 
his pocket ' ; he could neither keep it there, nor ever expend 
it wholly on himself. On one occasion, when quite a little 
boy, he had a present from a relative of a dollar. Such an 
excess of wealth was never before in his possession ; and 1 
can now bring before me the very expression of glee with 
which he came among us, to disencumber himself of the 
load. This is the only incident that I can now recall, and 
this must have been full fifty years ago. He had the 
same large heart when a boy, that animated him to the last. 
His intellectual endowments are known to the world; but 

.^13 



THE HALL OF FAME 



only his early companions, who have survived him, can bear 
witness to the rare uniformity of his moral worth ; man and 
boy, he was, in their true sense, high-minded and noble- 
hearted." 

At the age of twelve, William Ellery was sent to New 
London to prepare for college, under the care of his uncle, 
the Rev. Henry Channing. While he was residing there, on 
the 2 1st of September, 1793, his father died. His death 
left the family in poverty, and not only brought to the boy 
great sadness, but increased determination to insure his own 
self-support as soon as possible. 

He remained over a year with his uncle, and a letter 
which he received from that uncle soon after entering college 
is suggestive of the kind of thirteen-year-old boy he was. 
The uncle writes : 

" It gave me sensible pleasure to find you, my dear 
nephew, retaining the same animated sensibility which ren- 
dered you capable of receiving and communicating happi- 
ness, and secured you cordial welcome while resident in my 
family. Your aunt loves you tenderly, and often expresses 
her feelings while recounting your affectionate respect and 
attention. Never did you excite one painful emotion in our 
breast, but always with you our hearts were made glad. 
We never can forget such a nephew, or, rather, such a son." 

Young Channing entered Harvard College as a Fresh- 
man in 1794, being then in his fifteenth year. And thus 
closed a boyhood as pure and sweet as any recorded in 
American biography. Judge Story, who was his classmate 
in Harvard, writes of his character in college: 

" I became a member," writes Judge Story, '" of the 
same class in January, 1795, and was then first introduced 

314 



1^ 



to him. He resided during the whole of his collegiate 
course with his uncle, whose house was at some distance 
from the colleges ; and partly from this fact, and partly from 
his reserved, although bland deportment, he did not asso- 
ciate much with his classmates generally, at the same time 
that he drew about him a circle of choice and select friends 
from the most distinguished of his class, with whom he 
indulged in the most frank intercourse, and by whom he 
was greatly beloved and respected. 

" So blameless was his life, so conciliatory his manners, 
and so unobtrusive his conduct, that he enjoyed the rare 
felicity of being universally esteemed by all his classmates, 
even by those to whom he was least known, except in the 
lecture-room as a fellow-student. The little strifes and 
jealousies and rivalries of college life, in those days, scarcely 
reached him ; and his ov/n rank in scholarship was, from 
the beginning to the conclusion of his academical career, 
admitted to be of the highest order. I do not believe that 
he had a single personal enemy during that whole period, 
and I am sure that he never deserved to have any ; and his 
early reputation, as it budded, and blossomed, and bore its 
fruits, w'as cherished by all his class as common property. 
We were proud of his distinctions, and gratified when he 
was praised." 

Channing graduated from Harvard in 1798. He was 
now in his nineteenth year, and felt that he must relieve 
his mother of his support. He accepted an invitation to go 
to Richmond, Virginia, as a tutor. He remained there two 
years, reading theology during all his spare time. 

In July, 1800, he returned to Newport. The vessel in 
which he sailed was a sloop engaged in transporting coal. 



i» 



'^^ 



THE HALL OF FAME 






It was in a most wretched condition, being leaky and damp, 
and worse manned, for the captain and crew were drunken. 
They ran upon a shoal, and lay there till fortunately lifted 
off by the next tide. He was very ill and much exposed, 
and his friends were shocked on his arrival, to find the 
vigorous, healthy young man, who had left them eighteen 
months before, changed to a thin and pallid invalid. His 
days of health were gone, and henceforth he was to experi- 
ence in the constantly depressed tone of a most delicate 
organization, the severest trial of his life. 

He remained with his family for a year and a half, 
devoting himself tc his theological studies, and having 
under his charge the son of his Virginia friend, Mr. Ran- 
dolph, and his own youngest brother, whom he was pre- 
paring for college. 

In December, 1801, Channing was elected to the office of 
Regent in Harvard University, — a situation in every way 
most desirable, as it gave him support while pursuing his 
studies, and required but slight duties in return. 

Channing began to preach in the autumn of 1802, being 
then in his twenty-third year. He was invited both by the 
Brattle Street and the Federal Street Churches in Boston, 
and he chose the smaller church, because he feared his health 
would not permit him to properly serve the other. He was 
ordained June i, 1803, and thus entered upon his first pas- 
torate in his twenty-fourth year. 

At this time, Channing was troubled in a different way 
from most men. Many young ministers, as well as other 
young men, find it hard to hold themselves with sufficient 
absorption and concentration to one subject, but with Chan- 
ning the exact reverse was true. He writes in his journal: 

316 



CHANNING 



w 



m}l 









" A subject has been very injurious to me. It has shut 
nie up in my room till my body has been exhausted, and has 
led to neglect of my people and family. I must be moderate 
in everything. 

" It will often be useful to fix the number of hours 
during which I will attend to a subject, and rigidly to adhere 
to the determination. 

" My mode of study destroys me, my health, my piety, 
my social feelings; and is therefore sinful. 

" My long absorption in a subject enfeebles my mind, 
prevents its free action, casts a cloud over my thoughts. 

" My speculations about the origin of moral feelings, 
etc., cannot justify a practical neglect of them. 

'* No subject can be usefully continued beyond a certain 
time. The mind needs to be recruited. All the motives 
which impel me to pursue the subject require me to disen- 
gage my mind for a season. 

*' The attainment of truth requires me to be able to 
continue in a state of doubt until I have had time to examine 
all the arguments which relate to a point ; and this examina- 
tion, however protracted, if conducted by a love of truth, is 
virtuous, — approved by conscience and God, — the improve- 
ment of my best powers, — an approximation towards God. 

" The wretchedness I have suffered on so many topics 
shows the importance of limiting the period of attention. 

" Because doubt spreads itself over one subject I ought 
not to doubt of all. This will lead to misery. A narrow mind 
cannot see the connections between many propositions which 
are yet supported by sufficient proofs. 

" My sleep has been broken by anxiety at not discovering 
truth. 

317 



THE HALL OF FAME 



$>-^i 




"Let it be my rule never to carry a subject with me 
into society. My social duties are in this way neglected." 

In the first sermon which Channing wrote, he showed 
the singular consistency of his inward nature by expressing 
that which is the keynote to all his ministry and life. He 
said in that sermon : 

" The end of life, God's one grand purpose, is, to 
prepare mankind for the holiness and blessedness of heaven 
by forming them to moral excellence on earth. Redemption 
is the recovery of man from sin, as the preparation for glory. 
And all Christian morals may be reduced to the one prin- 
ciple, and declared in one word. Love. God is love ; Christ 
is love ; the gospel is an exhibition of love ; its aim is to 
transform our whole spirits into love. The perfection of 
the Divine system is revealed in the mutual dependencies 
which unite all creatures. All lean upon one another, and 
give while they receive support. No man is unnecessary ; 
no man stands alone. God has brought us thus near to each 
other, that his goodness may be reflected from heart to heart. 
Holiness is light. We glorify God when by imitation we 
display his character. The good man manifests the beauty 
of God." 

In the summer of 1814, Channing was married to his 
cousin, Miss Ruth Gibbs. This was the beginning of a life 
rich in gentle happiness and beautiful affection. His moth- 
er-in-law, who was the sister of his father, had much of the 
character of her brother, and was one of the most benignant 
and gracious of women. 

In 1822, Channing made a trip to Europe, and was 
absent for more than a year. He did not resume his min- 
istry in Boston again until August, 1823. From this time 

318 



m 





his influence rapidly widened in its scope. He began to 
write, and to reach a much larger audience by the pen than 
he had been able to reach from his pulpit. In many modern 
reforms Channing was both a prophet and a John the 
Baptist, opening up the day for a better time to come. In 
the treatment of criminals, on the question of temperance, 
and the relations between the poor and the rich, on the ques- 
tion of education, on the labor question, and the question 
of equality for woman, and, indeed, upon almost every 
question of human relationship, about which the battle has 
raged in our own time, William Ellery Channing was more 
than a generation ahead of the day in which he lived. No 
man used a keener sword or showed more devoted earnest- 
ness in the fight against slavery than Channing. And no 
man went into the fight with more love for the South and 
with more careful and conscientious desire to be fair and 
brotherly on all sides. 

Channing spent the summer of 1842 at Lenox, and 
started home in September, to fall ill at Bennington, Ver- 
mont. There he steadily grew worse until the end came, 
October 2, 1842. One who was with him writes: 

" In the afternoon he spoke very earnestly, but in a 
hollow whisper. I bent forward ; but the only words I 
could distinctly hear were, ' I have received many messages 
from the Spirit.' 

" As the day declined his countenance fell, and he grew 
fainter and fainter. With our aid, he turned himself towards 
the window, which looked over valleys and wooded sum- 
mits to the east. We drew back the curtains, and the light 
glorified his face. The sun had just set. and the clouds 
and sky were bright with gold and crimson. He breathed 

319 




:-,^e;^s*^afej 





\\ 



more and more gently, and, without a struggle or a sigh, 
the spirit passed. 

" Amidst the splendor of autumn, at an hour hallowed 
by his devout associations, on the day consecrated to the 
memory of the risen Christ, and looking eastward, as if in 
the setting sun's reflected light he saw promise of a brighter 
morning, he was taken home." 








CHAPTER XXXI. 
GILBERT CHARLES STUART 

" The portrait of George Washington was undertaken 
by me. It had been indeed the object of the most valuable 
years of my life to obtain the portrait." Inscription on 

THE TABLET ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OE GiLBERT ChARLES 

Stuart in the Hall of Fame. 

GILBERT CHARLES STUART was born December 
3, 1755. The name was originally spelled "Stewart," 
but he changed the spelling in early life, and very 
early dropped the " Charles," so that he won his fame as 
Gilbert Stuart. 

Gilbert's father was a snuff grinder, a business he 
deserted about the time his young son was getting ready for 
scliool, and the family removed to near Newport. There 
he had the benefit of an excellent teacher, the Rev. George 
Bissit. He soon became a good Latin scholar, despite the 
fact that he was a very mischievous youth, and the added 
fact that he never missed an opportunity to draw pictures 
with chalk or charcoal, on a fence or a barn or tail-board of 
a wagon. 

One day the town doctor came to the house of Gilbert 
Stuart, and as he was about to go away asked Mrs. Stuart 
who covered the sides of tlie barn with drawings in chalk 

323 






4i M^ 




THE HALL OF FAME 



and charcoal. She replied by pointing to Gilbert, with 
whom the doctor at once entered into conversation. Before 
leaving, the doctor arranged that the boy should come and 
make him a visit. When he arrived, Dr. Hunter gave him 
brushes and colors, and bade him paint a picture of his two 
hunting dogs, that were lying on the floor under a table. 
Stuart at once began the picture, which is still owned in 
Newport, Rhode Island. 

At the age of thirteen, he painted the portraits of Mr. 
and Mrs. John Bannister, very prominent and wealthy 
Newport people. These portraits are now in the Redwood 
Library. 

In 1770, an English artist named Cosmo Alexander, 
visited Newport, and seeing the talent of the boy, gave him 
all the instruction he could in the way of his art. Gilbert 
was so quick to catch everything that was said to him, and 
made such progress, that Alexander, on his return to Eng- 
land, took the lad with him, promising to put him in the way 
©f a thorough education as a painter. There is no doubt of 
his intention to keep this promise, but, unfortunately, he died 
soon after reaching Scotland. Just before his death, he 
commended Stuart to the care of his friend. Sir George 
Chambers. But to Stuart's great misfortune, Sir George 
in a few weeks followed his friend to the grave. This left 
him in a hard plight. Sir George had found an opening for 
him in the University at Glasgow, where he was studying 
diligently, but after his friend's death he could not long 
remain there, lacking the necessary means for support. So, 
with a sad heart, he returned in a collier, by way of Nova 
Scotia, after an absence from America of about two years. 

Although Stuart's experience on his first English trip 
324 




had been very hard, he had, nevertheless, gained a good deal 
of information. Had seen some fine pictures, and had come 
in contact with true artists. 

His merits soon began to be recognized, and he was 
called on to paint the portraits of some of the wealthy Jews 
of Rhode Island. Among portraits painted at this time 
were those of the Lopez family, also that of his uncle, a 
Mr. Anthony, of Philadelphia. 

In March, 1775, he had so far gained self-reliance that 
he determined to sail with a young artist friend, Water- 
house, for England. 

Once in London he hunted up cheap lodgings, and 
sought for sitters by which to gain his living. But these 
were hard to find by a young, unknown artist. Finally, 
poverty drove him to call at the house of Benjamin West, 
and ask him for an introduction. Dunlap, Stuart's biog- 
rapher, relates the story of their first meeting. He says: 

" West was dining with some friends when a servant 
told him that someone wished to see him. He made answer, 
' I am engaged ;' but added, after a pause, ' Who is he ? ' 
' I don't know, sir : he says he is from America.' There- 
upon, one of the guests, Mr. Wharton, said, ' I will go and 
see who it is.' Wharton was from Philadelphia, and was 
intimate with West's family. He went out and found a 
handsome youth, dressed in a fashionable green coat. With 
him he talked for some time, and finding that he was a 
nephew of Joseph Anthony, one of the most prominent 
merchants in Philadelphia, and who happened to be a 
friend of Mr. Wharton, he at once told Mr. West that he 
was well connected. Hearing this. West came out and 
received his visitor cordially. Stuart told him of his long 

32s 



THE HALL OF FAME 



desire to see him, and of his wish to make further progress 
in his calHng; to all of which West listened with kindness 
and attention. At parting, he requested Stuart to bring him 
something that he had painted. This Stuart did gladly; in 
a few days he commenced his studies with West, and 
shortly after, in the summer of 1777, he was domiciled in 
the family. At that time he was two-and-twenty vears of 
age." 

Stuart's knowledge of music proved a happy thing for 
him during his struggle for bread during the early days of 
his London experience. Walking one day in one of the 
streets of London, known as Foster's Lane, he heard the 
notes of an organ. Pausing a moment to listen, he followed 
up the sounds, which led him to the open door of a church, 
and as there was no one there to make objection, he did not 
hesitate to enter. 

At once he became an interested spectator, for he had 
stumbled upon a number of candidates for the office of 
organist, who were in turn playing before the Vestry. Stuart 
asked to be a competitor, which was granted ; his playing 
was much superior to that of the others, and it resulted in 
his election as organist, with a salary of thirty pounds a 
year, he having given satisfactory reference as to his fitness 
and standing. His reference was Sir Alexander Grant, a 
Scotch gentleman, to whom he had a letter from America, 
but whose acquaintance he did not make till he had been 
with West for some time. When, at length, he became 
known to that gentleman, he was called upon to paint his 
portrait, full length, and a group of his children. These 
pictures served, in later days, to make Stuart's reputation. 

Stuart's daughter tells how her father once went to Sir 
326 






STUART 



Joshua Reynolds, taking to him some fine colors from West, 
and of what occurred at that time : 

" Reynolds took him into his painting room to show 
him his picture of Mrs. Siddons, as the Tragic Muse. Sir 
Joshua, seeing him so delighted, invited him to come and see 
it when it was finished, which my father was only too happy 
to do. Going into Reynold's room, he found him full of 
anxiety and busily giving the finishing touches, his hair (or 
his wig) very much disheveled, his stockings rather loose, 
and his personal appearance disordered. The instant my 
father looked at the picture, he caught his breath with a 
feeling of disappointment. Sir Joshua perceived this, and 
asked him if he did not think he had improved it. Stuart 
answered, * It could not have been improved,' and asked, 
' Why did you not take another canvas ? ' Sir Joshua replied, 
' That is true.' My father immediately realized what a very 
great liberty he had taken, and was exceedingly abashed ; but 
the good Sir Joshua bore the criticism very amiably, possibly 
thinking that the opinion of so youn^ a man was not of any 
moment." 

Stuart's first great portrait was that of Alexander Grant, 
the Scotchman. When Mr. Grant first came to his studio 
he expressed regret at the appointment on account of the 
excessive coldness of the weather, and observed to Stuart 
that the day was better suited for skating than sitting for 
one's portrait. Stuart said that early practice had made 
him very expert at skating, and together they went out to 
try their skill. Stuart's celerity attracted crowds on the 
Serpentine River, the scene of their sport. His companion, 
although a well-made and graceful man, was not as active 
as himself, and there being a crack in the ice, which made 

327 





it dangerous to continue their amusement, he told Mr. Grant 
to hold the skirt of his coat, and follow him off the field. 
They returned to Mr. Stuart's room, where it occurred to 
him to paint Mr. Grant in the act of skating, with the appen- 
dage of a winter scene in the background. Mr. Grant con- 
sented, and the picture was immediately commenced. During 
the progress of it, Baretti, the Italian lexicographer, called 
upon Mr. West one day, and coming, through mistake, into 
Mr. Stuart's room where the portrait was, then nearly 
finished, he exclaimed, " \\^hat a charming picture ! Who 
but the great artist West could have painted such a one!" 
^4' Stuart said nothing, and as Mr. West was not at home, 
Baretti called again, and coming into the same room, found 
Stuart at work upon the very portrait. " What, young 
man, does Mr. West permit you to touch his pictures ? " 
was the salutation. Stuart replied that the painting was all 
his own. '* Why," said Baretti, forgetting his former obser- 
vation, " it is almost as good as Mr. West can paint." 

Stuart now rapidly gained in reputation. The fact that 
Mr. West and Sir Joshua Reynolds had sat to Stuart, helped 
to bring him into notice. Having gained a position, he 
demanded and received a price for his pictures only exceeded 
by the sums paid to Sir Joshua and Gainsborough. Stuart 
related this incident to Sully: 

" Lord St. Vincent, the Duke of Northumberland, and 
Colonel Barre came unexpectedly one morning into my 
room, locked the door, and then made known the object of 
their visit. They understood that I was under pecuniary 
embarrassment, and offered assistance, which I declined. 
Then they said they would sit for their portraits. Of course, 
I was ready to serve them. They then advised that I should 

328 



m 



^Xf^'^^'"""^''' 





{i^ 



make it a rule that half price must be paid at the first sitting. 
They insisted on setting the example, and I followed the 
practice ever after this delicate mode of showing their 
friendship." 

The author of Scribner's Biography of Stuart, says of 
this period: 

" For a time Stuart lived in splendor. Money rolled in 
upon him, and he spent it as lavishly, never giving heed to 
the morrow, nor cared he what became of his earnings. As 
a bird loves to sing, so he loved to paint, and with sitters 
waiting their turn, and with those around him with whom 
he could give play to his remarkable conversational powers, 
he was contented and happy. Daily his rooms were thronged 
with visitors, who thought it a privilege to sit to him, and 
who were ready to pay anything that he thought proper to 
charge them. At these sittings he was always entertaining." 

Stuart had not long been established as a portrait 
painter when he married Miss Charlotte Coates, a daughter 
of Dr. Coates, of Berkshire, England. The family, although 
they admired Stuart's genius, were afraid of his reckless 
habits in money matters, and opposed the match violently, 
but at length consented. 

It is remarkable how many times Stuart was grievously 
disappointed in his own career by the death of his friends. 
Two years after his marriage, he was urged by the Duke of 
Rutland, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to visit Dublin. 
He did so only to reach that city just as the funeral cortege 
of the Duke issued on its way to the tomb. He did not 
remain long in Ireland. He had already an intense desire 
to paint the portrait of Washington, and sailed directly from 
Dublin to America. 

329 




Mii^ 






THE HALL OF FAME 




Gilbert Stuart landed in New York in 1792, and was 
warmly welcomed at home. His countrymen were proud 
of him. He had gone away, a poor boy, to match himself 
against the world, and came back a painter of acknowledged 
reputation. He had more sitters than he could satisfy, and 
if he had saved his money would soon have been rich. But 
quick worker though he was, in spite of the liberal prices 
paid him, his purse was always empty. 

While Congress was in session in Philadelphia in 1794, 
Stuart arrived with a letter of introduction to Washington 
from John Jay. He first met his illustrious subject on a 
reception evening, and was spontaneously accosted by him 
with a greeting of dignified urbanity. Familiar as was the 
painter with eminent men, he afterwards declared that no 
human beinjr ever awakened in him the sentiment of rever- 
ence to such a degree. For a moment he lost his self-pos- 
session, — with Stuart an experience quite unprecedented, — 
and it was not until several interviews that he felt himself 
enough at home with his sitter to give the requisite concen- 
tration of mind to his work. 

In Philadelphia, Stuart resided in a house on the south- 
east corner of Fifth and Chestnut streets. Here it was that 
he painted his first portrait of Washington. From Phila- 
delphia Stuart removed to Washington, where he resided 
for two years, removing to Boston in 1805. 

In Boston, Stuart resided during the remaining years 
of his life ; as improvident and careless in all matters relating 
to his financial affairs as in his younger days, and as indif- 
ferent to opportunities tliat were frequently afforded him to 
increase his gains and extend his reputation. The Pennsyl- 
vania Academy of Fine Arts desired to obtain from him a 

330 



W^M^ 



STUART 




full length portrait of Washington, but when applied to, 
with an offer of fifteen hundred dollars, he never even 
answered the letter; nor did he take any notice of a letter 
asking him to paint his own portrait for the Academy at 
Florence. 

Gilbert Stuart's health began to fail in 1825 and 1826. 
This was followed by symptoms of paralysis in his left arm, 
which depressed him greatly; and although his mind was 
clear and active to the last, he never recovered from the 
shock to his feelings when he found that his arm was 
becoming useless. He died July 27, 1828, and was buried 
in Boston, 



.■^.^T 





-?^ 



CHAPTER XXXIL 
ASA GRAY 

"I confidently expect that in the future, even more them 
in the past, faith in an order zvliich is the basis of Science 
7vill not he dissevered from faith in an ordainer ivhich is 
the basis of religion." Inscription on the; tablet erected 

TO THE MEMORY OF ASA GrAY IN THE HaLL OF FaME. 

SA GRAY was born in Oneida County, New York, 
November i8, 1810. His father had a little tannery 
at Paris Furnace, in that county. The earliest 
recollection that the future scientist retained was when he 
was allowed to drive around the ring the old horse which 
turned the bark mill, and later was required to supply the 
said mill with its grist of bark. The latter he regarded as 
a very lonely and monotonous occupation. 

He was sent to the district school nearby when 
three years old. His earliest distinct recollection of school 
was of spelling matches, in which at six and seven years he 
was champion. A remarkable story is told of this childish 
school time by a friend, who writes : 

" His father promised him a spelling book of his own 
as soon as he reached ' baker,' which was a marked spot 
of advance in the spelling book. A few weeks saw him far 
enough on, and the coveted prize was given. He went 

332 




Robert D. Sheppabd Anson D. Morse Fred SI. Fling 

A. C. McLaughlin G. F. Swain John F. Jameson R. H. Dabney 

Burke A. Hinsdale 

William II. Welsh C. M. Andrews Frank W. Blackmar E. C. Pickering 

John W. Burgess R. W Raymond II. C. Adams 



SOME FAMOUS PROFESSORS OF HISTORY AND SCIENTISTS WHO ACTED AS JUDGES 



(333) 



^^r^^ 



GRAY 



proudly to school the next day, and as he could not speak to 
the teacher to proclaim his triumph, he walked in front of 
her desk to his seat, waving the book with a great flourish 
before her. It was just before he was three years old." 

Young Gray was sent for a little over a year to a private 
school, taught at Sauquoit, by the son of the pastor of the 
parish; after which he was office boy for his grandfather 
for a year more. At the age of twelve, he was sent nine 
miles away to the Clinton grammar school, where he was 
drilled in Latin and Greek for two years, excepting the three 
summer months, when he was taken home to assist in the 
com and hay field, for the father gradually became a small 
farmer in addition to his business as a tanner. 

At the end of these two years, Asa went to Fairfield 
Academy, in Herkimer County, and always remembered 
walking that November with the other students seven miles 
down to Little Falls, to see there the arrival of the canal- 
boat which bore the Canal Commissioners, with Governor 
De Witt Clinton at their head, on the ceremonious voyage 
from Buflfalo to New York City, thus marking the comple- 
tion of the Erie Canal. 

Asa Gray always regarded his outside reading as far 
the largest part of his education. His capital memory 
enabled him to acquire his lessons very quickly, and in the 
rest of the time he read everything that he could lay his 
hands on. 

It had been intended that the boy should go to college, 
but when the time came money was scarce, and he was at 
once put into the medical school at Fairfield. He had 
already attended its courses in chemistry given by Professor 
Tames Hadley, the father of the present President of Yale 

335 



^^ 



a>r 



\%t^ 



THE HALL OF FAME m 




University. Professor Hadley was his earliest scientific 
adviser. Even in those days Gray had a passion for miner- 
alogy as well as for chemistry. The spring and summer 
of 1827, he passed in the office of one of the village doctors 
of Sauquoit, returning to the medical school at Fairfield in 
the autumn. That year, in the course of the winter, he 
picked up and read the article " Botany " in Brewster's 
Edinburgh Cyclopedia, which interested him very much. He 
bought Eaton's Manual of Botany, pored over its pages, and 
waited impatiently for spring. Before the spring opened, 
the short college session being over, he became a medical 
student after the country fashion, in the office of a doctor, 
John F. Trowbridge, of Bridgewater, Oneida County. He 
remained there during the three years more of his medical 
studies, taking his degree at the close of the session in 1830, 
lacking a few months of the legal age of twenty-one. The 
fact of this lack in age he did not communicate to the 
faculty. 

During the last three years of his medical course, Gray 
had given every spare moment to botany, and especially to 
practical search for plant specimens. The year he received 
his M.D,, Professor Hadley invited him to give a short 
course of lectures on botany in the school. The course was 
given in five or six weeks, beginning in the latter part of 
May. Gray prepared himself during the winter, and gave 
this his first course of lectures, cleared forty dollars by the 
operation, and devoted it to the making of a tour to the 
western part of the State of New York, as far as Niagara 
Falls, Buffalo and Aurora. 

He next became a Professor of Natural Sciences at a 
school in Utica, New York, and here, for over two years, 

3Z^ 



he taught chemistry, geology, mineralogy, and botany, to 
boys, making with the boys very pleasant botanical excur- 
sions through the country around. He spent his summer 
vacations collecting plants in the Pine Barrens of New 
Jersey. 

In 1825, he made his first essay at the literature of 
Botany. That summer he blocked out, and partly wrote his 
Elements of Botany. He went to New York in the autumn 
and managed to sell his book to Carvill and Company, who 
gave him one hundred and fifty dollars for it. This seemed 
a very great sum in his eyes. The little book was published 
in May, 1836. 

In the autumn of 1836, Gray was appointed Curator 
at the Lyceum of Natural History, in New York City. Here 
he had a room for his use, a small salary, not very heavy 
duties, and plenty of time to study. He was now beginning 
to be recognized as a growing botanist. He joined with Dr. 
Torrey in the production of the Flora of North America, 
the first part being issued in July and the second in October, 
1838. About this time he was elected Professor of Natural 
History in the newly chartered University of Michigan, and 
the trustees gave him, in the autumn of 1838, a year's leave 
of absence, a salary for that year of fifteen hundred dollars, 
and put into his hands five thousand dollars for their general 
library. He sailed early in November in the packet-ship 
Philadelphia, for Liverpool. He remained abroad a year, 
meeting many scientific men and greatly broadening and in- 
creasing his knowledge. Returning to America, and finding 
the Michigan University not yet ready for his services, he 
devoted a year to bringing out parts three and four of the 
first volume of The Flora of North America. 

337 




In January, 1842, he made his first visit to Boston, and 
had the privilege of dining with President Josiah Quincy, 
President Quincy was evidently impressed with young Gray, 
for in April of that same year, he wrote hmi a letter telling 
him that the Corporation of Harvard University would 
elect him Fisher Professor of Natural History if Gray would, 
beforehand, signify his acceptance. The endowment then 
yielded fifteen hundred dollars a year. He was to have only 
a thousand, and allow the rest to accumulate for a while. 
Meanwhile he was to give only a course of botanical lectures, 
in the second spring term, and look after the garden. 

Gray accepted the position, and the same year brought 
out the first edition of his Botanical Text-Book. He put 
his new title on the title page, and made it a text-book for 
his class. 

Dr. Gray's biographer, speaking of him at this time, 
says that Dr. Gray was very deeply interested in the relig- 
ious thoughts of the day ; though reticent in regard to his 
own religious feelings, and sensitive about any exhibition of 
them, he was ready at any time to discuss problems of 
theology and ecclesiasticism. His temper was naturally 
conservative, and he held by the habits of thought which had 
been early formed ; but he was open to conviction, and by 
the process of his own thought, broke through narrow 
bounds and rejoiced in all true progress in religion, both 
for himself and others. In the matter of scriptural author- 
ity, for example, he was in accord with Soame Jenyns, 
taking the ground quoted here: 

" The Scriptures," says that writer, in his Internal 
Evidences of Christianity, " are not revelations from God, 
but the history of them. The revelations themselves are 

338 




^^^Wl^^ 



w* 



GRAY 



derived from God, but the history of them is the production 
of man. If the records of this revelation are supposed to 
be the revelation itself, the least defect discovered in them 
must be fatal to the whole. What has led many to overlook 
this distinction is that common phrase that the Scriptures 
are the Word of God; and in one sense they certainly are; 
that is, they are the sacred repository of all the revelations, 
dispensations, promises, and precepts which God has vouch- 
safed to communicate to mankind ; but by this expression we 
are not to understand that every part of this voluminous 
collection of historical, poetical, prophetical, theological, and 
moral writing which we call the Bible, was dedicated by the 
immediate influence of Divine inspiration." 

He held this ground strongly when the general view of 
the Bible was narrower than of late years. As the years 
went on he grew broader and sweeter, feeling wider sym- 
pathy with all true, devout religious belief. He was a con- 
stant church-goer, everywhere. 

On June ii, 1850, Dr. Gray sailed for a second trip 
to Europe. The steamers were then making regular trips, 
but as the packets were still running, they sailed by packet, 
hoping to benefit Mrs. Gray's health. He had had corre- 
spondence with all the great men of Europe in his line, and 
it was a great pleasure and profit for him to have this 
opportunity for meeting them face to face. He was now a 
very busy man, carrying on a large correspondence of a 
scientific character, keeping his botanical text-books in their 
new editions up with advanced science, looking after his 
botanical garden, all of this, together with his college work, 
gave him work enough for a giant. His biographer says 
of him : 

339 




5):?.*, 



THE HALL OF FAME 




" Dr. Gray was an immense worker. After his morning 
mail was received and looked over, that he might answer 
any imperative questions, he took daylight for his scientific 
work, and, with pauses for meals, and the necessary inter- 
ruptions that came at times, he kept steadily on all the day. 
He wrote his letters and his elementary botanical works 
mostly in the evening. But in his younger days his eyes 
were unusually strong, and he would work with the micro- 
scope by lamp-light, as readily as by daylight. 

" Though a steady and unwearying worker he was not 
rapid. He would throw aside sheet after sheet to be 
rewritten, especially if there was anything he wished to 
make particularly clear and strong, or any reasoning to be 
worked out from the soundest point of view. It was always 
a wonder to those about him that he could stand as he did 
the unceasing labor, but he was a sound sleeper even if the 
hours might be short, and of a vigorous, wiry, active tem- 
perament, and when he did take a holiday, he took it 
heartily. His rest and recreation were in journeys, longer 
or shorter, and every two or three years some long outing 
would be taken, to give him the needed refreshment. But 
he must always be busy, even then having somewhere to go 
and something to see ; rest in quiet seemed impossible to him 
for more than a day at a time." 

Dr. Gray made his fifth journey to Europe in the fall 
of 1868. He landed in September, and went at once to 
Kew, where he remained most of the time at work in the 
herbarium until November. He made a short round of 
visits, first to Mr. Church, who was then rector of Whatley, 
a village of Somersetshire, where, with Mrs. Gray, he 
enjoyed to the full his stay in one of the loveliest parts of 

340 




iiwa^- 



GRAY 



rural England. They went also to Down to pay a visit to 
Darwin, and with them went Dr. and Mrs. Hooker, with 
their two eldest children, and Professor Tyndall. Those 
were days never to be forgotten. In November, Dr. and 
Mrs. Gray joined some family friends in Paris, with whom 
they went to Egypt and passed the winter on the Nile, 
taking the longest vacation, Dr. Gray said, he had ever 
enjoyed. Upon their return they passed through Italy, 
Switzerland, and Germany, where old botanical acquaint- 
ances were renewed, and some persons seen whom he had 
known only by correspondence. In England he again 
worked at Kew, and repeated the visits at Whatley and 
Down, sailing for America November 9, 1869. 

Early in September, 1880, Dr. Gray again sailed for 
Europe in company with his wife, visiting almost every 
collection of importance, studying herbaria for his new 
volume of the Synoptical flora. He gave special attention 
to the subject of asters. 

The autumn was spent in western France and Spain, 
and in Madrid he looked over the herbarium there. He 
declared nobody had ever had so many asters pass through 
his hands as he had ! 

The winter was spent in hard work in the Kew herba- 
rium. He enjoyed heartily in spring a journey through 
Italy with his friends Sir Joseph and Lady Hooker, return- 
ing to Kew to spend the summer, at work in the herbarium, 
and he sailed again for home in October, 1881. 

In 1887, h^ again visited England, where he received 
the highest honors at Cambridge and Oxford. Dr. Sandys, 
in presenting Dr. Gray for the honors of Cambridge Uni- 
versity, said: 

341 







THE HALL OF FAME 



"And now we are glad to come to the Harvard 
professor of Natural History, facile princeps of trans-at- 
lantic botanists. Within the period of fifty years, how 
many books has he written about his fairest science; how 
rich in learning, how admirable in style ! How many times 
has he crossed the ocean that he might more carefully study 
European herbaria, and better know the leading men in his 
own department! In examining, reviewing and sometimes 
gracefully correcting the labors of others, what a shrewd, 
honest and urbane critic has he proved himself to be ! How 
cheerfully, many years ago, among his own western coun- 
tryman, was he the first of all to greet the rising sun of our 
own Darwin, believing his theory of the origin of various 
forms of life demanded some First Cause, and was in har- 
mony with a faith in a Deity who has created and governs 
all things ! God grant that it may be allowed such a man 
at length to carry to a happy completion that great work, 
which he long ago began, of more accurately describing the 
flora of North America! Meanwhile, this man who has 
so long adorned his fair science by his labors and his life, 
even unto a hoary age, 'bearing/ as our poet says, 'the 
white blossom of a blameless life,' him, I say, we gladly 
crown, at least with these flowerets of praise, with this 
corolla of honor. For many, many years may Asa Gray, 
the venerable priest of Flora, render more illustrious this 
academic crown." 

On returning home from this trip. Dr. Gray found 
himself unusually busy with his correspondence and other 
work, but continued well until the Thanksgiving time. 

He went in to Boston for the family Thanksgiving din- 
ner, though there had seemed some threatening of a cold, but 



342 



i^^^l 



"^ 



he pronounced himself perfectly comfortable. Still there was 
a quick breathing and some listlessness, so that he was 
nursed a little on Friday ; though he saw Miss Murfree, who 
had been brought by Mrs. Houghton to ask him to settle 
some question about a flower of the Southern Alleghanies, 
and he entered into the matter with all his old life and 
eagerness. That evening he had two slight chills, so that 
the doctor was summoned the next day, and fearing some 
chest trouble, as he seemed threatened with one of his 
bronchial attacks, advised him to keep in bed. 

On Sunday his pulse and temperature had improved 
so much that he was allowed to get up and go down stairs 
at noon, the doctor congratulating him on the success of the 
treatment. There seemed a weakness of the right hand, 
which, however, passed away, and he wrote that evening 
a letter, and when remonstrated with for making the exertion, 
said " it was important, and must be written." 

The next morning he seemed bright and well, but on 
going down to breakfast there came a slight shock in the 
right arm, which seemed, however, to pass off after he had 
rested. He managed to put up, for two friends in England, 
copies of his Review of the Life of Darzvin, in the Nation, 
penciling the address so that it could be read. But a more 
severe shock returned in the early afternoon, and for a few 
moments a loss of articulation. That disappeared, and the 
physician looked hopefully at the case, though recommending 
extreme quiet for mind and body. By Wednesday evening 
he seemed greatly improved, but the next morning the power 
of connected speech had gone. He could repeat words 
spoken to him, and could sometimes, apparently with long 
striving, connect the wish and the words, but for the most 

343 



REGULATIONS 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 
SOME RULES AND REGULATIONS 

BETWEEN the founder of the Hall of Fame and the 
New York University a contract was drawn up in 
March, 1900, which sets forth in a most interesting 
manner the ideas which were to find their expression in the 
new monument for great Americans. 

I. 

A gift of one liundred thousand dollars is accepted by New 
York University under the following conditions. The money is to 
be used for building a colonnade five hundred feet in length, at 
University Heights, looking towards the Palisades and the Harlem 
and Hudson River valleys. The exclusive use of the colonnade is 
to serve as '" The Hall of Fame for Great Americans." One 
hundred and fifty panels, each about two by eight feet, will be 
provided for mscriptions. Fifty of these will be inscribed in 1900, 
provided fiftj' names shall be approved by the two bodies of judges 
named below. At the close of every five years thereafter, five 
additional panels will be inscribed, so that the entire number shall 
be completed by A.D. 2000. The statue, bust or portrait of any 
person whose name is inscribed, may be given a place either in the 
" Hall of Fame " or in the museum adjoining. The following 
rules are to be observed for inscriptions : 

(i) The University will invite nominations until May r, from 
the public in general, of names to be inscribed, to be addressed by 
mail to the Chancellor of the University, New York. 

(2) Every name that is seconded by any member of the 
Senate will be submitted to one hundred or more persons through- 
out the country who may be approved by the Senate, as professors 
or writers of American history, or especially interested in the same. 

345 



aJSftoS 



^®« 

i"^^ 




(3) No name will be inscribed unless approved by a majority 
of the answers received from this body of judges before October i 
of the year of election. 

(4) Further, each name must be finally approved by a two- 
thirds vote of the thirteen regular members of the New York 
University Senate, who are the Chancellor with the Dean and 
senior professors of each of the six schools, and by a majority of 
the honorary members voting, the latter being each the president 
or representative of one of the six theological faculties in or near 
New York City. 

(5) No name may be inscribed except of a person born in 
what is now the territory of the United States, and of a person 
who has been deceased at least ten 3'ears. 

(6) In the first fifty names must be included one or more 
representatives of the majority of the following fifteen classes of 
citizens: 

(a) Authors and Editors, (b) Business Men. (c) Edu- 
cators, (d) Inventors. (e) Missionaries and Explorers. (f) 
Philanthropists and Reformers. (g) Preachers and Theologians, 
(h) Scientists. (i) Engineers and Architects. (j) Lawyers 
and Judges, (k) Musicians, Painters and Sculptors. (1) Physi- 
cians and Surgeons, (m) Rulers and Statesmen, (n) Soldiers 
and Sailors. (.0) Distinguished ]\Ien and Women Outside the 
Above Classes. 

(7) Should these restrictions leave vacant panels in any year, 
the Senate may fill the same the ensuing year, following the same 
rules. 



The following additional condition was accepted and 
adopted by the University, March 26, 1900: 

The granite edifice which will serve as the foundation of the 
Hall of Fame shall be named the Museum of the Hall of Fame. 
Its final exclusive use shall be the commemoration of the great 
Americans whose names are inscribed in the colonnade above, by 
the preservation and exhibition of portraits and other important 
mementoes of these citizens. The six rooms and the long corridor 
shall in succession be set apart to this exclusive use. The room 
to be used first shall be named the Washington Gallery, and shall 
be set apart so soon as ten or more portraits of the persons in- 
scribed shall be accepted for permanent preservation by the Uni- 
versity. The other rooms shall be named and set apart for the exclu- 
sive use above specified so soon as their space shall, in the judgment 
of the University, be needed for the purposes of the Museum of the 

346 



Kv% 



^.^ 




REGULATIONS 



Hall of Fame. In the meantime they may be devoted to ordinary 
college uses. The outer western wall of the Hall of Languages and 
of the Hall of Philosophy, which look into the Hall of Fame, shall 
be treated as a part of the same, and no inscription shall be placed 
upon them, except such as relate to the great names inscribed in 
the 150 panels. Statues and busts of the great Americans chosen 
may be assigned places either in the Museum of the Hall of Fame 
or in the Hall itself, as the givers of the same may decide, with 
the approval of the University. 

II. 

Action of the New York University Senate in regard to 
the Roll of Judges of the Hall of Fame. 

The judges contemplated in the above action are selected by 
the New York University Senate in accordance with the three 
following rules : 

First. They are apportioned to the following four classes of 
citizens, in as nearly equal numbers as possible : 

A. University or College Presidents and Educators. 

B. Professors of History and Scientists. 

C. Publicists, Editors and Authors. 

D. Judges of the Supreme Court, State or National. 
Second. Each of the forty-five States is included in the ap- 
pointments. When in any State no one from the first three classes 
is named, the Chief Justice of the State is invited to act. 

Third. Only citizens born in America are invited to act as 
judges. No one connected with New York University is invited. 

Minutes of the Senate of New York University, April j, igoo. 



III. 



Action of the Senate in regard to the presentation to the 
judges of nominations under the rules governing the same. 

The following resolutions were adopted in regard to nomi- 
nations for the Hall of Fame, under the rules governing this 
matter : 

First. The University Senate seconds the nomination of each 
of the hundred names received, that rank first in the number of 
persons who have put them in nomination. 

347 



3i(!fe= 




THE first step to be taken, was, as we have seen, to select 
the judges. The University Senate, which accord- 
ing to the contract, is composed of nineteen mem- 
bers connected with the facidty of the New York Uni- 
versity, including as an advisory board, the President or 
other representative, first began its work of securing the one 
hundred judges by selecting eminent Presidents of Univer- 
sities, certain eminent scholars in American history, and after 
them a few men of science. By this time the Senate came 
to the decision that it wovdd be wiser to adopt a definite 
method for the selection of judges. Accordingly they made 
the following regulations : 

First. They are apportioned to the following four 
classes of native born American citizens, in as nearly equal 
numbers as possible: (a) University or College Presidents 
and Educators; (b) Professors of History and Scientists; 
(c) Publicists, Editors, and Authors; (d) Judges of the 
Supreme Court, State or National. 

Second. Each of the States is included in the appoint- 
ment. When in any State no one from the first three classes 
is named, the Chief Justice of the State is entitled to act. 

These regulations are no part of the contract between 
the giver of the Hall and the University, and may be changed 

351 



i^^N^^e 




XJ^.WrtV 




at any time by the University Senate. The first one hun- 
dred judges selected were as follows : 

UNIVERSITY AND COLLEGE PRESIDENTS AND 
EDUCATORS 

E. A. Alderman, Tulane University. New Orleans, La. 

James B. Angell, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Mich. 

John H. Barrows, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. 

W. S. Chaplin, Washington University, Saint Louis, Mo. 

W. H. Crawford, Allegheny College, Meadville, Pa. 

James R. Day, Syracuse University, Syracuse, N. Y. 

Charles W. Eliot, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 

W. H. P. Faunce, Brown University, Providence, R. I. 

G. A. Gates, Iowa College, Grinnell, Iowa. 

Arthur T. Hadley, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. 

C. C. Harrison, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa. 

Caroline Hazard, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass. 

William De W. Hyde, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me. 

David Starr Jordon, Leland Stanford University. Palo Alto, Cal. 

J. H. Kirkland, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. 

Seth Low, Columbia University, New York City. 

Henry Morton, Stevens Institute, Hoboken, N. J. 

Mrs. Alice F. Palmer, Cambridge, Mass. 

Henry Wade Rogers, Northwestern University. Evanston, 111. 

David S. Schaff, Lane Theological Seminary, Cincmnati, O. 

James M. Taylor. Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 

Miss M. Carey Thomas, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pa. 

C. F. Thwing, Western Reserve University, Cleveland, O. 

W. J. Tucker, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N. H. 

George Washburn, Robert College, Constantinople, Turkey. 

PROFESSORS OF HISTORY AND SCIENTISTS 

H. C. Adams, University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, Mich. 
Charles M. Andrews, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pa. 
Frank W. Blackmar, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kan. 
Edward G. Bourne, Yale University. New Haven. Conn. 
Henry E. Bourne, Western Reserve University, Cleveland, O. 
G. J. Brush, lately Dean of Sheffield Scientific Sch, New Haven. Ct. 
John W. Burgess. Columbia University, New York City. 
Edward Channing, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 
Richard H. Dabney. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va. 
C. A. Duniway, Leland Stanford LTniversity, Palo Alto, Cal. 

352 



JUDGES 



Jl 



Fred M. Fling, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Neb. 

Burke A. Hinsdale, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 

Charles Warren Hunt, New York City. 

John F. Jameson, Brown University, Providence, R. I. 

Harry P. Judson, University of Chicago, Chicago, 111. 

Joseph Le Conte, University of California, Berkeley, Cal. 

A. C. McLaughlin, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 

J. H. T. McPherson. Universitv of Georgia, Athens, Ga. 

Anson D. Morse, Amherst College, Amherst, Mass. 

Edward C. Pickering. Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 

Rossiter W. Raymond, Burling Slip, New York City. 

T. J. Shahan, Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C 

Robert D. Sheppard, Northwestern University, Evanston, 111. 

George F. Swain, Mass. Institute of Technology, Boston, Mass. 

William Henry Welch. Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. Md. 

W. M. West, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn. 




PUBLICISTS, EDITORS, AND AUTHORS 

John S. Billings, New York City. 

Borden P. Bowne, Boston University, Boston, Mass. 

James M. Buckley, Morristown, N. J. ^ 

Grover Cleveland, Princeton, N. J. 

George F. Edmunds, Philadelphia, Pa. 

Edward Eggleston, Madison, Ind. 

George P. Fisher, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. 

Richard W. Gilder, New Y'ork City. 

Edward Everett Hale, Roxbury, Mass. 

Albert B. Hart, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 

Thomas W. Higginson, Cambridge, Mass. 

John F. Hurst, Washington, D. C. 

St. Clair McKelway, Brooklyn, N. Y. . . 

Philip V. Myers, University of Cincinnati, Cmcmnati, U. 

George E. Post, Beirut, Syria. 

Whitelaw Reid, New York City. 

James F. Rhodes, Boston, Mass. 

Theodore Roosevelt, Albany, N. Y. 

Albert Shaw. New York City. 

William F. Sloane, Columbia University. New York City. 

Edmund C. Stedman. New York City. 

Anson Judd Upson. New York City. 

Moses Coit Tyler, Cornell University. Ithaca. N. Y. 

Charles Dudley Warner. Hartford, Conn. 

Andrew D. White, Berlin. Germany. 

Woodrow Wilson, Princeton, N. J. 




'n^fe^S 




^^^?fS^j^as^^^z'^W^IS 


^ 


CANDIDATES 


^^ 


mS^^^^^^^^^^m 






[«o* 



CHAPTER XXXV. 
SELECTION OF CANDIDATES 

AT the time when the pubHc were invited to nominate 
those great Americans who to them seemed most 
worthy of a place in the Hall of Fame, many news- 
papers offered prizes for the best list of names. 

The most interesting of these newspaper contests was 
carried on in the Spring of 1900, by the Brooklyn Daily 
Eagle. " Shortly after the officers and faculty of the New 
York University had announced the plan for its Hall of 
Fame, the Eagle offered a prize of $100 for that list submit- 
ted to it which shall come the nearest to the final list as 
selected by the judges for the building, which is to stand on 
University Heights. The contest closed on May i, and up 
to the date 776 lists had been sent in to the Eagle. Each 
list, with one or two exceptions, contained fifty names, the 
number to be first selected out of the one hundred and 
fifty to be finally chosen, and in general each list complied 
with the other requirements, that the name submitted be that 
of a man born in this country, or in territory now a part of 
the United States, and that the man have been dead for at 
least ten years. 

" As soon as the contest closed on May i the Eagle 
examined the lists submitted to it carefully, with the idea of 
finding out the most popular fifty Americans according to 

355 




t^^ 



the seven hundred odd lists that it had in hand. These lists, 
it may be said, came from all parts of the United States, from 
the South, from as far West as Missouri, from New Eng- 
land, with, of course, the larger share from the city of New 
York. Many of them were sent in by school children, and 
in one case each member of a history class in one of the 
Brooklyn high schools sent in a list. The names of the fifty 
receiving most votes follow: 

Votes 

1. Benjamin Franklin 754 

2. Abraham Lincoln 754 

3. George Washington 744 

4. U. S. Grant 732 

5. Robert Fulton 720 

6. Thomas Jefferson 720 

7. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 718 

8. Daniel Webster 714 

9. Admiral Farragut 706 

10. S. F. B. Morse 698 

1 1. Henry Ward Beecher 696 

12. Horace Greeley 686 

13. Washington Irving 680 

14. Henry Clay 626 

15. Ralph Waldo Emerson 618 

16. Patrick Henry 614 

17. Peter Cooper 586 

18. Nathaniel Hawthorne 582 

19. Eli Whitney 564 

20. William Cullen Bryant 528 

21. John Marshall 486 

22. James Fenimore Cooper 468 

23. Andrew Jackson 448 

24. Elias Howe 416 

25. Commodore Perry 416 

26. Jonathan Edwards 404 

27. John C. Calhoun 400 

28. William Lloyd Garrison 400 

29. Robert E. Lee 400 

30'. John Jay 398 

31. James Monroe 394 

32. William H. Seward 374 

33. Edgar Allan Poe 358 

356 





52^. 



CANDIDATES 







34. Wendell Phillips 356 

35. George Peabody ' ' 352 

36. Horace Mann 350 

2,7. John Adams 348 

38. Charles Sumner "-^32 

39. John James Audubon 328 

40. Rufus Choate 322 

41. Benjamin West 320 

42. Cornelius Vanderbilt 308 

43. DeWitt Clinton 280 

44. Noah Webster 280 

45. James Madison 278 

46. Philip Henry Sheridan 272 

47. W. H. Prescott 270 

48. Nathan Hale 258 

49. Samuel Adams 248 

50. John Lothrop IMotley 244 

A writer in the Eagle, of May 11, 1900, made a very 
interesting analysis of the vote. He says : 

" An examination of the first fifty names in the Eagle's 
fist shows that the Eagle's correspondents have failed to select 
any person in Class E of competition, Missionaries and 
Explorers. According to the conditions laid down by the 
University, one or more of the fifty names finally selected 
must be that of a missionary or explorer. INIany mission- 
aries and explorers were voted for and some of them received 
good sized votes, but none of them came within the first fifty. 
Class I, Engineers and Architects, is another class left vacant 
by the Eagle's voters, as is also Class L, Physicians and Sur- 
geons. 

" It is a noteworthy fact that Abraham Lincoln and 
Benjamin Franklin tie for the first place in the Eagle's list, 
and that George Washington is distanced by them both. 
Washington, however, precedes Grant, and it is rather to be 
expected that, while either one is deservedly popular with 

357 



m 



[^fi^ 



THE HALL OF FAME 




^ 



the American people, Washington, as both statesman and 
soldier, should precede the man who was first a soldier 
and afterward rather President than statesman. It would 
hardly be expected, however, that Robert Fulton should 
come so high up in the list, leading all inventors in the 
popular mind. Longfellow, in the seventh place, is another 
result hardly to be expected, the nearest author to him being 
Irving, in the thirteenth place. 

" According to the classifications prescribed by the New 
York University, the Eagle's fifty names may properly be 
classified as follows : Authors and Editors : Greeley, 
Longfellow, Irving, Emerson, Hawthorne, Bryant, James 
Fenimore Cooper, Poe, Prescott and Motley. Business 
Men : Cornelius Vanderbilt. Educators : Horace Mann. In- 
ventors : Morse, Eli Whitney, Elias Howe, Fulton and 
Franklin. Missionaries and Explorers : no names. Philan- 
thropists and Reformers : Peter Cooper, Garrison, Peabody 
and Phillips. Preachers and Theologians : Beecher and Ed- 
wards. Scientists : Audubon. Engineers and Architects : 
no names. Lawyers and Judges : Choate and Marshall. 
Musicians, Painters, and Sculptors: Benjamin West (artist). 
Physicians and Surgeons : no names. Rulers and States- 
men : Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, Webster, Clay, Clin- 
ton, Henry, Jackson, Calhoun, Jay, Monroe, Seward, John 
Adams, Samuel Adams, Sumner, Madison. Soldiers and 
Statesmen : Grant, Farragut, Perry, Lee and Sheridan, 
Distinguished Men and Women outside the above classes : 
Nathan Hale and Noah Webster. 

" It is obvious that in many instances the same man 
could appropriately be placed in more than one class. Wash- 
ington was a soldier as well as a statesman. Noah Webster 

358 






im// 





might be considered an author, for his work on the diction- 
ary. Benjamin FrankHn also might come under more than 
one class. 

** A further examination of the lists shows some curious 
commentaries on men and events and their value as time 
goes by. Daniel Webster gets 714 votes, while Robert 
Hayne gets 5. Robert E. Lee receives 400 votes, while 
Jefferson Davis is remembered by only 15 people. Braxton 
Bragg, J. E. B. Stuart, and Beauregard are other Confeder- 
ate generals voted for. The Union generals are numerous, 
though none of them, except Grant, Sheridan and Sherman, 
received a very high vote. The physician nearest to the first 
fifty is Dr. W. T. G. Morton, who is No. 71. Mary Lyon, 
No. 80, it will be noted, is the woman who comes nearest 
to the roll. Daniel Boone is quite a favorite, having 232 
votes to his credit, with No. 53 as his place in the list. 

" In general, in reading the lists, certain people could be 
counted on every time, though no one name appeared on all. 
Lincoln, Grant, Washington, Jefferson, Longfellow, Frank- 
lin and Fulton were expected, though one list had neither 
Washington, Lincoln, nor Webster. Lincoln and Longfel- 
low, both beginning with L, were pretty sure arrivals when 
a new list was opened, and the times that they did not appear 
together were the exception. 

" One list, however, was a curiosity. Reached well 
along toward the last it had twenty-three names on it which 
had not before appeared, which means that the twenty-three 
were names not generally known. Of the twenty-three, 
seventeen were not known even by name to the people who 
were reading the lists and compiling the figures. The other 
five were known to one or the other of the readers." 

359 



<<Ml 



'^,'^r 





THE HALL OF FAME 




CHAPTER XXXVL 



NOMINATIONS 



OF the thousand names of great Americans that were 
finally sent in by the public, and the further nomi- 
nations by the members of the New York University 
Senate and the electors, the following two hundred and 

thirty-four names, representing fifteen classes of citizens, 
were submitted to the judges. 

(A) AUTHORS AND EDITORS 

1 William Cullen Bryant, 1794-1878 

2 James Fenimore Cooper, 1789- 185 1 

3 Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882 

4 Edward Everett, 1794- 1865 

5 William Lloyd Garrison, 1804-1879 

6 Horace Greeley, 1811-1872 

7 Nathaniel Hawthorne 1804- 1864 

8 Richard Hildreth 1807- 1865 

9 Washington Irving, 1783- 1859 

10 Francis Scott Key, i78o-i{ 

11 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1805- 1882 

12 John Lothrop Motley. 1814-1877 

13 John Gorham Palfrey 1796-1881 

14 Ray Palmer, 1803-1^ 

15 John Howard Payne 1792-1855 

16 Wendell Phillips, i8ii-ir 

17 William Hickling Prescott, 1796-1859 

18 Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1849 

19 Jared Sparks, 1789-1866 

20 George Ticknor 1791-1871 

21 Noah Webster 1758-1843 

22 Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862 

23 Helen Hunt Jackson, 1831-1885 

360 





NOMINATIONS 



(B) BUSINESS MEN 

Daniel Appleton, 1785-1849 

Jonas Chickering 1798-185,? 

Erastus Fairbanks, 1792-1864 

James Harper, 1795- 1869 

Amos Lawrence 1786- 1852 

Cornelius Vanderbilt, 1794-1877 

(C) EDUCATORS 

Thomas H. Gallandet, 1787-1851 

Mark Hopkins, 1802-1887 

Samuel G. Howe, 1801-1876 

Taylor Lewis, 1802-1887 

Elias Loomis, 1811-1889 

Mary Lyon, 1797-1849 

William H. McGuffey. 1800-1873 

Horace Mann, 1796-1859 

Lindley Murray 1745-1826 

10 EHphalet Nott 1773-1866 

11 Henry Tappan, 1805- 1881 

12 Francis Wayland 1796-1865 

13 Emma Willard 1787- 1870 

14 Theodore D. Woolsey 1801-1889 

15 Samuel Harvey Taylor, 1807-1879 

(D) INVENTORS 

1 Thomas Blanchard 1782- 1864 

2 Alvan Clark, 1808- "" 

3 Samuel Colt 1814- 

4 Oliver Evans 1755- 

5 Robert Fulton 1765-1 

6 Charles Goodyear, 1800- 

7 Richard M. Hoe 1812- 

8 Elias Howe 1819- 

9 Charles T. Jackson 1805- 

10 Cyrus Hall McCormick, 1809-1884 

11 Samuel F. B. Morse 1791-1872 

12 William Thomas Green Morton 18 19- 1868 

13 John Stevens 1749- 1804 

14 Alfred Vail 1807- 

15 Eli Whitney 1765-1 

16 Horace Wells 1815-1 

361 



cj^ 



THE HALL OF FAME 



I 

2 

3 
4 
5 
6 

7 
8 

9 

lO 

II 

12 

13 
14 
15 
i6 

17 

i8 

19 

20 
21 




(E) MISSIONARIES AND EXPLORERS 

Daniel Boone 1735-1820 

David Brainerd 1718-1747 

John Carroll i735-i8i5 

Titus Coan 1801-1882 

David Crockett 1786-1836 

Manasseh Cutler, 1742-1843 

George W. DeLong 1844- 1881 

John Charles Fremont, 1813-1890 

Gordon Hall, 1784-1826 

Isaac I. Hayes, 1832-1881 

Sam. Houston 1793-1863 

Adoniram Judson 1788-1850 

Elisha Kent Kane 1820-1857 

Samuel Kirkland 1744-1808 

Meriwether Lewis 1774-1809 

Justin Perkins 1805-1869 

Eli Smith 1801-1857 

Marcus Whitman 1800-1847 

Charles Wilkes 1801-1877 

George Rogers Clark, 1 752-1818 

Zebulon M. Pike i779-i8i3 

(F) PHILANTHROPISTS 

John Brown 1800-1859 

Peter Cooper 1791-1883 

Dorothea Lynde Dix 1805- 1887 

Johns Hopkins 1794- 1873 

Lucretia Mott 1793-1880 

George Peabody 1795-1869 

Gerrit Smith, 1797-1874 

Elizabeth A. Seton 1 774-1821 

James Lick 1796-1876 

(G) PREACHERS AND THEOLOGIANS 

Archibald Alexander 1772- 185 1 

J. Addison Alexander 1809-1860 

Albert Barnes 1798- 1870 

Henry Ward Beecher 1813-1887 

Lyman Beecher 1775-1863 

Orestes A. Brownson , . . . . 1803-1876 

Horace Bushnell 1801-1876 

Peter Cartwright, 1785- 1872 

362 







9 William Ellery Channing 1780-1842 

10 Timothy Dwight 1752-1817 

11 Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758 

12 Charles G. Finney, 1792-1875 

13 Charles Hodge, 1797-1878 

14 Samuel Hopkins 1721-1803 

15 Thomas Starr King, 1824- 1864 

16 Charles P. Mcllvaine 1799-1873 

17 William MacKendree, 1757-1835 

18 Cotton Mather, 1663-1728 

19 Stephen Olin, 1797-1851 

20 Theodore Parker 1810-1860 

21 Edward Robinson, 1794-1863 

22 Matthew Simpson, 1810-1884 

23 Henry B. Smith 1815-1877 

24 Martin John Spalding 1810-1872 

25 John McClintock 1814-1870 

26 Richard Furman, 1755-1825 

(H) SCIENTISTS 

1 John James Audubon 1780-1851 

2 Spencer F. Baird 1823- 1887 

3 Alexander D. Bache 1806-1867 

4 Nathaniel Bowditch, 1773-1838 

5 William Chauvenet 1819-1870 

6 Henry Draper 1837- 1882 

7 James P. Espy, 1785-1860 

8 Asa, Gray 1810-1888 

9 Robert Hare 1781-1858 

10 Joseph Henry 1797-1878 

11 Edward Hitchcock. 1793-1864 

12 Isaac Lea 1792-1886 

13 Matthew Fontaine Maury 1806- 1873 

14 Maria Mitchell 1818-1889 

15 Benjamin Peirce 1809-1880 

16 David Rittenhouse 1732-1796 

17 Benjamin Silliman 1779-1864 

18 Benjamin Thompson 1753-1814 

19 John Torrey, 1796-1873 

(I) ENGINEERS AND ARCHITECTS 

1 Capt. James B. Eads 1820- 1887 

2 Henry H. Richardson, 1838-1889 

3 Horatio Allen, 1802- 1889 

363 





Gridley Bryant, 1789-1867 

Charles Bulfinch 1763-1844 

Ellis S. Chesbrough, 1813-1886 

George Henry Corliss, 1817-1888 

Zerah Colburn, 1804-1840 

Charles Ellet, 1810-1862 

James Geddes, 1763-1838 

Alexander L. Holley. 1832- 1882 

John Bloomfield Jervis 1795-1885 

Benjamin H. Latrobe, 1807- 1878 

William Barton Rogers, 1804-1882 

Benjamin Wright 1770- 1849 

Henry R. Worthington 1817-1880 

(J) JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

Rufus Choate 1799-1859 

Oliver Ellsworth 1745- 1807 

James Kent, 1763- 1847 

Edward Livingston 1764- 1836 

John Marshall 1755-183S 

Charles O'Conor 1832-1870 

Joseph Story, 1779-1845 

Roger B. Taney 1777-1864 

Henry Wheaton, 1785-1848 

William Wirt, 1772-1854 

Lemuel Shaw, 1781-1861 

(K) MUSICIANS, PAINTERS. AND SCULPTORS 

John Singleton Copley i737-i8i5 

Thomas Crawford, 1814-1857 

Lowell Mason 1792- 1872 

Hiram Powers 1805-1873 

William H. Rinehart 1825- 1874 

Gilbert Stuart, 1 755- 1828 

William Morris Hunt 1824- 1879 

(L) PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS 

Valentine) Mott 1785-1865 

Benjamin Rush 1745-1813 

James Marion Sims 1813-1886 

Ephraim McDowell 1771-1850 

John Collins Warren 1778-1856 

364 




iM 




Charles Francis Adams, 
John Quincy Adams 
John Adams 
SamueV Adams, 
Thomas H. Benton 
John C. Calhoun 
Salmon Portland Chase, 
Henry Clay, 
DeWitt Clinton 
ID Stephen Arnold Dougla 

11 Benjamin Franklin 

12 James Abram Garfield, 

13 John Hancock 

14 Patrick Henry 

15 Andrew Jackson 

16 John Jay 

17 Thomas Jefferson 

18 Richard Henry Lee, 

19 Abraham Lincoln. 

20 Robert R. Livingston 

21 James Madison, . 

22 James Monroe, . 

23 Gouverneur Morris, 

24 James Otis, 

25 Charles C. Pinckney, . 

26 William H. Seward, 

27 Roger Sherman 

28 Edwin McMasters Stanton. 

29 Alexander H. Stephens, . 

30 Charles Sumner, 

31 Martin Van Buren, . 

32 George Washington, 

33 Daniel Webster, .... 

34 Henry Wilson 

35 Charles Carroll, .... 

36 John J. Crittenden. . 
ZJ Samuel J. Tilden, 



(N) SOLDIERS AND SAILORS 



-•iiS-.Ai ■ \ri! P-h- 



1 Stephen Decatur. 

2 David Glascoe Farragut 

3 Ulysses Simpson Grant 

4 Nathanael Greene 



I 779- 1820 
1801-1870 
1822- 188s 
I 742- I 786 




THE HALL OF FAME 




5 Nathan Hale, i755-i776 

6 Thomas J. Jackson, 1824- 1873 

7 James Lawrence, 1781-1813 

8 Robert E. Lee 1807-1870 

9 George G. Meade, 1815-1872 

10 Oliver Perry, 1785-1819 

11 David Porter, 1780-1843 

12 Israel Putnam 1717-1790 

13 Philip Schuyler, 1733-1804 

14 Winfield Scott 1786-1866 

15 Philip Henry Sheridan, 1831-1888 

16 Zachary Taylor, 1784- 1850 

17 George Henry Thomas, 1816-1870 

18 George Brinton McClellan, 1826- 1887 

19 Albert Sidney Johnston, 1803- 1862 

20 James Samuel Wadsworth. 1807- 1864 

(O) DISTINGUISHED MEN AND WOMEN OUTSIDE THE 
ABOVE CLASSES 

1 Charlotte Saunders Cushman 1816-1876 

2 Edwin Forrest, 1806- 1872 

3 Martha Washington, 1732-1802 





Geo. F. Edmunds Andrew D. White Geo. P. Fisher 

Whitel.^w Reid Woodbow Wilson J, M. Buckley Theodore Roosevelt 

Grover Cleveland R. W Gilder Edward E. Hale Albert Shaw 

Charles Dudley Warner E. C. Stedman Borden P. Bowne 



A GROUP OF FAMOUS EDITORS AND AUTHORS WHO ACTED AS JUDGES 



(368) 




Candidates and Classes 

at 

(C) Educators: 

Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 4 

Mark Hopkins 17 

Mary Lyon 12 

Horace Mann 22 

Francis Wayland 9 

Theodore Dwight Woolsey. 3 

(D) Inventors: 

Alvin Clark 7 

Robert Fulton 21 

Charles Goodyear i 

Richard Marsh Hoe 3 

Elias Howe 14 

Cyrus Hall McCormick. . . . 3 

Samuel Finley Breese Morse 23 

Eli Whitney 18 

Horace Wells 3 

(E) Missionaries and Explorers 

Daniel Boone 6 

John Charles Fremont 3 

Samuel Houston 2 

Adoniram Judson 13 

Elisha Kent Kane 5 

Meriwether Lewis 2 

Marcus Whitman 10 

George Rogers Clark i 

(F) Philanthropists: 

John Brown 5 

Peter Cooper 18 

Dorothea Lynde Dix 4 

George Peabody 19 

370 



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On 


1 


3 


4 


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14 


14 


12 


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48 


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2 


20 


22 


12 


II 


67 


3 


5 


7 


24 


6 


9 


3 


21 


3 


2 




12 


24 


20 


21 


86 


6 


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13 


9 


4 


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47 


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9 


25 


23 


17 


19 


82 


20 


18 


13 


69 


4 


6 


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10 


7 


12 


35 


4 


3 


7 


17 


6 


3 


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16 


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22 


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2 


14 


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6 


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Candidates and Classes §6 «S& 

(G) Preachers and Theologians: 

Henry Ward Beecher 17 20 

Horace Bushnell 12 7 

William Ellery Channing... 18 19 

Jonathan Edwards 23 22 

Cotton Mather 4 5 

Theodore Parker 3 10 

(H) Scientists: 

John James Audubon ig 18 

Asa Gray 18 16 

Joseph Henry 12 13 

Matthew Fontaine Maury.. 5 5 

Benjamin Peirce 4 4 

Benjamin Silliman 7 3 

Benjamin Thompson 6 9 

(I) Engineers and Architects: 

George Henry Corliss. .'.... 5 i 

James Buchanan Eads 7 11 

Henry Hobson Richardson. 12 13 

(J) Judges and Lawyers: 

Rufus Choate 14 10 

James Kent 13 18 

John Marshall 22 25 

Joseph Story 15 17 

Roger Brooke Taney 2 3 

Henry Wheaton 5 5 

(K) Musicians, Painters, and Sculptors; 

John Singleton Copley 9 10 

Hiram Powers 7 10 

Gilbert Charles Stuart n 18 

William Morris Hunt 3 4 

(L) Physicians and Surgeons: 

Valentine Mott .3 6 

Benjamin Rush 12 10 

James Marion Sims 11 

371 



ill 




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14 


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32 


16 


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58 


22 


15 


82 


5 


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18 


5 


3 


21 


14 


16 


67 


13 


4 


51 


13 


6 


44 


2 


8 


20 


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17 


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19 


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41 


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12 


47 


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65 


23 


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13 


9 


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33 


7 


12 


36 


15 


8 


52 


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>av' 




THE HALL OF FAME 




Candidates and Classes 2^ Scgb ■s£| 

ll III ill 

(M) Rulers and Statesmen: 

John Quincy Adams 13 14 13 

John Adams 15 19 14 

Samuel Adams 11 8 11 

Thomas Hart Benton 421 

John C. Calhoun 13 14 10 

Salmon Portland Chase.... 2 i 5 

Henry Clay 18 21 16 

Benjamin Franklin 24 26 22 

John Flancock 3 2 3 

Patrick Henry 11 9 10 

Andrew Jackson 11 14 10 

John Jay 7 6 5 

Thomas Jefferson 24 25 21 

Abraham Lincoln 25 26 23 

James Madison 11 14 10 

James Monroe 3 4 

William Henry Seward.... 566 

Charles Sumner 9 6 4 

George Washington 25 26 23 

Daniel Webster 25 26 23 

(N) Soldiers and Sailors: 

Stephen Decatur 4 8 5 

David Glascoe Farragut.... 22 23 19 

Ulysses Simpson Grant.... 25 26 21 

Nathaniel Greene 8 11 7 

Thomas Jonathan Jackson. .5 6 6 

Robert Edward Lee 16 19 17 

Oliver Hazzard Perry 9 5 5 

Winfield Scott . .. • 5 5 

Philip Henry Sheridan 466 

George Henry Thomas 5 6 10 

Albert Sidney Johnston.... i 2 3 

(O) Distinguished Men and Women Outside 
Classes : 

Charlotte S. Cushman 615 

Martha Washington 2 . . i 

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BALLOTS 



i-*' 



In this list it will be noted that none who received less 
than twelve votes are included. All receiving a less number 
of votes were counted " Scattering." The scattering votes 
were distributed as follows : 






AUTHORS 

Edward Everett, 9 ; Richard Hildreth, i ; Francis Scott Key, 2 ; 
John Gorham Palfrey, i; Ray Palmer, i; John Howard Payne, 4; 
Jared Sparks, 3 ; Henry David Thoreau, 3 ; Helen Hunt Jackson, 3. 

BUSINESS MEN 
Daniel Appleton, 7; Jonas Chickering, 2; Erastus Fairbanks, 2. 

EDUCATORS 

Samuel G. Howe, 9; Taylor Lewis, 2; Elias Loomis, 2; William 
H. McGuffey, 5; Lindley Murray, 7; Eliphalet Nott, 9; Henry 
Tappen, 7; Emma Willard, 4; Samuel Harvey Taylor, i. 

INVENTORS 

Thomas Blanchard, 2 ; Samuel Colt, i ; Oliver Evans, 3 ; Charles 
T. Jackson, i; William Thomas Green Morton, 6; John Stevens, 2; 
Alfred Vail, 6. 

MISSIONARIES AND EXPLORERS 

David Brainerd, 9; John Carroll, i; Titus Coan, 3; David 
Crockett, 8 ; Manasseh Cutler, 9 ; Gordon Hall, i ; Samuel Kirkland, 
I ; Charles Wilkes, 2. 



Johns Hopkins, 11 
Lick, I. 



PHILANTHROPISTS 

Lucretia Mott, 11; Gerrit Smith, i; James 



PREACHERS AND THEOLOGIANS 



Archibald Alexander, 3 ; J. Addison Alexander, i ; Albert Barnes, 
3 ; Lyman Beecher, 4 ; Orestes A. Brownson. 2 ; Peter Cartwright, 
Timothy Dwight, ii; Charles G. Finney, 4; Charles Hodge, 5; 
Stephen Olin, 4; IMatthew Simpson, 11; 
I ; John McClintock, i. 

373 



Thomas Starr King, 7; 
Martin John Spaulding, 




SCIENTISTS 

Spencer F. Baird, 8 ; Alexander D. Bache, g ; Nathaniel Bow- 
ditch, lo; William Chauvenet, i; Henry Draper, 8; Robert Hare, 2; 
Edward Hitchcock, 4; Maria Mitchell, 7; David Rittenhouse, 6; 
John Torrey, i. 

MUSICIANS, PAINTERS, AND SCULPTORS 
Thomas Crawford, 9; Lowell Mason, 10. 

PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS 
Ephraim McDowell, 5 ; John Collins Warren, 3. 

SOLDIERS AND SAILORS 

Nathan Hale, 5 ; George G. Meade, 6 ; David Porter, 6 ; Israel 
1^ Putnam, 10; Philip Schuyler, 4; Zachary Taylor, 9; George Brinton 
McClellan, 6. 

RULERS AND STATESMEN 

Charles Francis Adams, 4; DeWitt Clinton, 8; Stephen Arnold 
Douglas, 3 ; James Abram Garfield, 7 ; Richard Henry Lee, 3 ; 
Robert E. Livingston, 3; Gouverneur Morris, 7; James Otis, 4; 
Charles C. Pinckney. 4 ; Roger Sherman, 5 ; Edwin McMaster Stan- 
ton, 6 ; Alexander H. Stephens, 7 ; Martin Van Buren, i ; Charles 
Carroll, 2 ; John J. Crittenden, i ; Samuel T. Tilden, 6. 

ENGINEERS AND ARCHITECTS 

Horatio Allen, i; Charles Bulfinch, 7; Ellis S. Chesbrough, i ; 
Zerah Colburn, i ; James Geddes, 2 ; Alexander L. Holley, 8 ; John 
Bloomfield Jervis, i; Benjamin H. Latrobe. 4; William Barton 
Rogers, 5; Benjamin Wright, i ; Henry R. Worthington, 4. 

JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

Oliver Ellsworth, 10; Charles O'Conor, 8; William Wirt, 6; 
Lemuel Shaw, 11. 

OUTSIDE THE ABOVE CLASSES 

Edwin Forrest, 6. 

374 




FAMOUS MEN 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 



SOME WHO BARELY MISSED ELECTION 



A 



S we have seen, fifty-one votes were required for 
election in the first ballot for the Hall of Fame, and 
no fewer than twenty-four names received within 
twenty of the requisite number of votes. 

At the head of this list stood John C. Calhoun, William 
Cullen Bryant, and James Madison, who received forty-nine 
votes; Andrew Jackson, Mark Hopkins, and John Quincy 
Adams, received 48 votes; Elias Howe and Rufus Choate, 
received 47; Horace Greeley, 45; Joseph Henry, 44; Benja- 
min Rush, 42; J. L. Motley and James Buchanan Eads, 41 ; 
Patrick Henry, 39; Edgar Allen Poe, 38; Noah Webster, 
Adoniram Judson, and Hiram Powers, 36; Daniel Boone, 
35 ; William H. Prescott, John Singleton Copley and Sam- 
uel Adams, 33 ; Horace Bushnell and Henry Hobson Rich- 
ardson, 32. 

John Caldwell Calhoun 

It was on the Calhoun Settlement, founded in South 
Carolina by his grandfather, that John Calhoun was born, in 
1782. His boyhood was passed in assisting his widowed 
mother in the management of the farm, and it was not 
until he was eighteen that he began his studies for the Bar. 
After passing through Yale with honors, he returned to his 

375 




^•^!i^^J57^^. 



THE HALL OF FAME 




native district and opened a law office. He was soon to play 
a prominent part in politics, and in November, 1811, became 
a Member of Congress. He was Secretary of War under 
Monroe; Vice-President of the United States under J. 
Quincy Adams, and again under General Jackson. 

Calhoun was looked upon as the champion of the 
South ; he was an eager advocate of free-trade — a strenuous 
defender of slavery — and was the author of a doctrine to 
which the Civil War may be traced — the doctrine of " Nulli- 
fication," which accords to each State the right to reject any 
act of Congress which it considers unconstitutional. 

Calhoun died at Washington in 1850. Famous as 
author, lawyer, orator and politician, the integrity and worth 
of his character have ever been spoken of in the highest 
terms, even by those most opposed to him in political views. 

William Cullen Bryant 

William Cullen Bryant, a poet of nature, was born in 
Cummington, Massachusetts, in 1794. When only eight 
years old he began to write poetry, and at the age of eleven 
a poem of his on the advance of knowledge was published in 
the Hampshire Gazette. In his thirteenth year he wrote a 
satire on President Jefferson's embargo on American ship- 
ping, which was published in Boston under the title of The 
Embargo; or, Sketches of the Times. After a short period 
at school he began the study of law. It was at this period 
that his best poem, Thanatopsis, was written, being published 
in the North American Review, in 181 7. After practising 
the legal profession for some time, he went, in 1825, to New 
York, to assume the editorship of the New York Review. 
He joined the staff' of the Evening Post, and in 1829 became 

376 






FAMOUS MEN 
r 



editor-in-chief and part proprietor of the paper. During 
the war he supported the Union, and was an advocate of the 
emancipation of the slaves. His prose was finished with 
exquisite grace; his poetry, overflowing with what Words- 
worth terms " rehgion of the woods," won for him immor- 
tahty. 

James Madison 

James Madison, fourth President of the United States, 
was born in Virginia, 1751. His Hfe was devoted to poHtics, 
and he became not only one of the most eminent and accom- 
plished but one of the most respected of American statesmen. 
In 1792, he became the leader of the Republican party in 
Congress, and was the author of the Virginia Resolutions 
of 1798, which contain the basis of the State's Rights doc- 
trines. Secretary of State under Jefferson, he was elected 
President in 1809, and was re-elected for a second term. 
After his retirement he served as Rector of the University 
of Virginia, and interested himself in agricultural and public 
improvements. 

Andrew Jackson 

His parents having immigrated to South Carolina from 
Ireland, in 1765, Andrew Jackson was born two years later 
on the Waxhaw Settlement. He had not the advantage of 
any regular education. As a boy, he took part in the War 
of Independence, and was taken prisoner in 1781. He 
studied law and began his practice at Nashville in Tennessee, 
of which State he assisted to frame the Constitution. In 
1797, he was elected United States Senator, and for 
years was Judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee. 






THE HALL OF FAME 



About this time he contracted a friendship with Burr, 
whose conspicuous champion he became at his trial. Suc- 
cessful in his profession, famed for his military exploits, he 
was quarrelsome and indiscreet in his private life. In 1806, 
he killed Charles Dickinson in a duel. In 18 13, he com- 
manded in the campaign against the Creek Indians in Geor- 
gia, and two years later the army under his command 
defeated the British forces before New Orleans. His stay 
in New Orleans was marked by the unrelenting sternness 
with which he enforced martial law. 

In 1818, Jackson received the command against the 
Seminoles, and three years later was appointed Military 
Governor of Florida. 

Jackson's nomination for the Presidency came in 1822, 
and he was successfully elected in 1828. In 1832, he was 
re-elected by a large majority over Clay, his chief opponent. 
The years which followed his retirement into private life 
were quiet and uneventful. He died near Nashville, June 
8, 1845. 

Mark Hopkins 

In 1802, at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, was born Mark 
Hopkins, destined to become famous throughout the world 
as an educator. He graduated at Williams College, and 
after holding a tutorship in that institution for two years 
he took up the study of medicine, and in 1829 began to 
practice in New York. The following year, however, he 
was called to fill the chair of Moral Philosophy and Rhetoric 
at Williams, of which college he afterwards became the 
president. In 1857 Mark Hopkins was invited to preside 
over the American Board of Foreign Missions. Renowned 

378 



m 



FAMOUS MEN 




as an educator, he performed a great work in improving the 
material conditions and the intellectual prestige of the college, 
with which he continued to be associated during his entire 
life. He was the author of a number of important educa- 
tional works. 

John Quincy Adams 

John Quincy Adams, the sixth President, and son of the 
second President, was born in Massachusetts in 1767. His 
boyhood was largely spent in travel. He went with his 
father on an embassy to Europe and passed several years in 
Paris, at the Hague, and lastly in London. During his 
father's Presidency he was sent on an embassy to Berlin, 
and traveled through Siberia. 

After occupying the chair of Professor of Rhetoric at 
Harvard University, he was elected Senator for Massa- 
chusetts, and next year was chosen to the Senate of the 
United States. Being sent as Plenipotentiary to Russia and 
afterward to England, he took part in the negotiations of 
peace with England, and assisted with his counsel the depu- 
ties sent from America to Ghent. 

Adams became Secretary of State under Monroe, and in 
1825 gained the Presidency. On the expiration of his term 
he joined the party of Abolitionists, and on occasion raised 
the whole House of Representatives against himself by his 
incessant petitions on the slavery question. In 1842, in order 
to assert strongly in the abstract the right to petition, he 
went so far as to present a petition for the dissolution of the 
Union ! 

John Quincy Adams died at Washington during the 
session of Congress, 1848. 

379 



rt 



THE HALL OF FAME 



77.' C" .- 



Elias Howe 

Elias Howe, the great inventor, was born at Spencer, 
Massachusetts, in 1819. He was employed first in a machine 
shop at Lowell and afterwards in one at Boston, and during 
this period he planned and developed his invention of a 
sewing machine. In May, 1845, the first machine was con- 
structed ; the following year a United States patent was 
obtained. Engaged on a fruitless endeavor to introduce his 
invention in England, Howe returned to this country to find 
that his patent had been infringed, and forthwith began seven 
years of weary litigation, which resulted in the establishment 
of his claim to royalties on the machine made. From this 
source his yearly income soon increased to $200,000, and the 
total fortune derived from the invention exceeded $2,000,000. 
Howe became the recipient of many marks of esteem 
and honor, and received from France the Cross of the Legion 
of Honor. He died in Brooklyn, in 1867. 

Rufus Choate 

Rufus Choate, statesman and brilliant advocate, was 
born in Essex, Massachusetts, in 1799. After graduating at 
Dartmouth College, he studied law, and although, after 
being called to the Bar, he was elected member of Congress, 
he soon returned to the practice of his profession. In 1841, 
he succeeded Daniel Webster in the United States Senate and 
won high renown for the ability and brilliancy of his 
speeches. Again resuming the practice of his profession, 
he was recognized as the foremost advocate at the Massa- 
chusetts Bar. In 1859, while on a vacation voyage to 
Europe, he was compelled, through illness, to land at Hali- 
fax, in Nova Scotia, and there, on July 13th, he died. 

380 



lA»S 






«Sio] 



FAMOUS MEN 



Horace Greeley 

Horace Greeley's birthplace was Amherst, N. H. ; the 
date of his birth, 1811. His business career began as an 
apprentice in a printing office at East Poultney, Vermont. 
After his apprenticeship he worked as a journeyman printer 
until 1834, when he started the Ncm Yorker, a literary 
weekly paper, to which he contributed essays, articles and 
poetry. In 1841, he commenced the New York Tribune, 
which became an advocate of temperance, woman's rights, 
the abolition of slavery, of capital punishment and other 
reforms. In 185 1 he visited Europe, and was chairman of 
one of the committees of the great Exhibition. 

On the outbreak of the Civil War, Horace Greeley 
became a zealous advocate of the Union, and is supposed 
to have caused the premature advance that resulted in the 
defeat at Bull Run, July 21, 1861. Greeley's death, which 
occurred in 1872, followed closely on his unsuccessful can- 
didacy for the Presidency the same year. 

Joseph Henry 

Joseph Henry, the eminent scientist, was born in Albany, 
N. Y., in 1797. In this city he was educated, and at the 
conclusion of his academic course he purposed adopting the 
medical profession, and prosecuted the study of chemistry, 
anatomy, and physiology with that end in view. At the 
same time he became known as a writer of papers on scien- 
tific topics, and in 1825 he unexpectedly received an appoint- 
ment as assistant engineer on the survey of a route for a 
state road from the Hudson River to Lake Erie. We find 
him next elected to the chair of Mathematics and Natural 
Philosophy in the Albanv Academy, and in 1832 he became 

381 



THE HALL OF FAME 




Professor of Natural Philosophy at Princeton University. 
Meanwhile, a long and brilliant series of discoveries and 
inventions in the field of electro-magnetism were given to the 
world. Among them the invention of the intensity magnet, 
which first made the electric telegraph a possibility. Nor 
did Henry relinquish his original inquiries when, in 1846, 
he was elected secretary and director of the Smithsonian 
Institute, then recently established. Particularly did he 
interest himself in meteorological observations, and besides 
organizing a large and widespread corps of observers, he 
suggested the utilization of the electric telegraph for the 
purpose of making meteorological reports. He was the first 
to record the weather indications daily on a map, and to 
make use of the generalizations made in framing weather 
forecasts. By general concession Henry was regarded as 
the foremost of American physicists. A man of varied cul- 
ture, liberal in his views, generous in his impulses, he was 
noted for his gentle and courtly manners no less than for his 
firmness of purpose and energy of will. 

Benjamin Rush 

Benjamin Rush was born near Bristol, Pa., on the 
homestead founded by his grandfather, who had followed 
Penn from England in 1663. He was educated with extreme 
care, and after a six-years' apprenticeship with a doctor in 
Philadelphia he went to Europe, studying in the hospitals 
of Edinburgh, London, and Paris, and finally, at the age of 
twenty-four, opened a practice in Philadelphia. At once he 
became a leading figure in the social and political life of 
the day. 

He was a friend of Franklin's, and was one of those 
382 




who signed the Declaration of Independence. In 1774, he 
started the first anti-slavery society. Benjamin Rush was 
a member of the convention of 1787 which met for the 
purpose of drawing up a federal constitution, and thereafter 
he retired from public life and devoted himself to his 
medical practice. He now became the central figure in the 
medical world of Philadelphia, and much of his influence 
and success was attributed to his method and regularity of 
life. Being consulting physician to the Pennsylvania hos- 
pital, he, in thirty years, never failed to make his daily visit, 
and was never so much as ten minutes late. 

In 1793, the yellow fever devasted Philadelphia, and 
Benjamin Rush at this time gained great credit by his 
unremitting care of the sick and by his successful method of 
treating the disease. He would visit no fewer than one 
hundred and twenty patients a day. 

It was the great surgeon's practice in the days of his 
prosperity to devote a seventh part of his income to charity. 

In 1813, he succumbed to an attack of typhus fever. 

John Lothrop Motley 

It was in 18 14, at Dorchester, now a part of Boston, 
Massachusetts, that John Lothrop Motley, the famous his- 
torian of the Dutch Republic, was born. His educational 
course at Harvard was followed by two years at a university 
in Germany, and after an extended European tour he re- 
turned to this country, and, becoming a student of law, was 
ultimately called to the Bar. In 1839, he published anon- 
ymously his first literary work, which attained no remarkable 
success. He now entered upon a diplomatic career, but being 
made Secretary of Legation to the Russian Mission he found 

383 



v^c^rii'n'^ 



v.'ft-?l?rv 



THE HALL OF FAME 




the atmosphere of St. Petersburg uncongenial to him, and 
resigning within a few months, he decided to adopt Htera- 
ture as his profession. It was in 185 1 that he returned 
to Europe, to complete the collection of material for the 
history of Holland, the idea of which had long occupied his 
mind. Then began that diligent and laborious search of the 
archives at Berlin, Dresden, Brussels, and the Hague, a 
research which occupied over five years, and resulted, in 1856, 
in the publication of the Rise of the Dutch Republic, a His- 
tory. In i860 appeared the History of the United Neth- 
erlands. The following year. Motley was appointed United 
States Minister at Vienna; in 1869, he occupied a similar 
position at the Court of St. James, and on retiring to private 
life he took up a permanent residence in England. Though 
for some years he continued his literary labors ill health 
began to interfere with his work, and in 1877 he died. 

Motley was a member of many learned societies in 
Europe and America. His works were not only popular 
with the reading public, but were frankly accorded the 
highest praise by scholars. 



James Buchanan Eads 

The celebrated engineer, James Buchanan Eads, was 
born in Laurenceburg, Indiana, in 1820. 

At the age of twenty-two he constructed a diving-bell 
boat, and subsequently built several boats for raising large 
steamers. In 1845, he erected the first glass works west of 
the Mississippi. In 1861, he built eight ironclads in one 
hundred days — these steamers were employed in the capture 
of Fort Henry, in 1862. 

In seven years he was engaged in the construction of 
384 



»-?•<. •.'.^^•■\\^ 



^^-'i!i::i{i 



kiW 












m. 



^'{V 





the steel arch bridge across the Mississippi River at St. 
Louis, and at a later period, he deepened the Southern Pass 
at the mouth of the Mississippi by means of jetties. He 
subsequently formed a company to construct a ship railway 
across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and was identified with 
many other gigantic enterprises. 

Eads was the first American to receive the Albert Medal 
of the British Society of Arts, which was awarded him in 
1884, three years before his death. 

Patrick Henry 

Patrick Henry, the eminent orator, was born in Vir- 
ginia, in 1736. His early life was marked by failure. First 
as a storekeeper and afterwards as a farmer, he proved 
unsuccessful. Turning then to the profession of law, it did 
not appear at first that he was destined to be more fortunate 
in this direction than he had been in others. He was, how- 
ever, engaged in 1755, to plead the cause of the people 
against an unpopular tax, and at this time his peculiar talent 
seemed suddenly to develop. 

His unlooked for display of eloquence won for him 
extravagant recognition; he was spoken of everywhere as 
the " orator of nature." Business poured in to him, and, his 
popularity serving to conceal his deficiencies, success was 
assured. From that time until the present day, he has 
been universally recognized as one of, if not the greatest of, 
American orators. In 1765, he was elected to the House of 
Burgesses, where he became celebrated as the author of 
certain resolutions against the stamp act, the last of which 
—providing that " the General Assembly of this colony have 
the sole right and power to lay taxes and impositions upon 

385 



^3r^ 



THE HALL OF FAME 




the inhabitants of this colony," — though passed by a major- 
ity of only one, was the keynote of the struggle for inde- 
pendence. He was one of the most unfluential members of 
the Virginia Legislature when that State was deliberating 
whether or not to join Massachusetts in resisting the arbi- 
trary policy of the English government, and proved himself a 
zealous patriot during the war period. 

Being a delegate to the first general Congress, which 
met in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1774, his voice was the first to 
break the silence of that assembly, and on that occasion the 
grandeur of his rugged eloquence astonished all his hearers. 

Two years later, Henry was elected Governor of Vir- 
ginia, and subsequently was twice re-elected. In 1795, 
Washington appointed him Secretary of State, and after- 
wards Chief Justice of the United States. In 1799 he died. 

Edgar Allen Poe 

Edgar Allen Poe was born in Boston, in 1809. He was 
destined to be the most interesting figure in American 
literature, as he was the loftiest and most original poetical 
genius to which this country has given birth. Yet his life 
was one of continued poverty and hardship, and after death 
he was to be subject to the most extraordinary instance on 
record of systematic and malignant misrepresentations. 

Poe graduated at the University of Virginia, in 1826, 
and one year later published his first volume of poems. 
Expressing a desire to enter the army, he secured a cadet- 
ship at West Point, but here he neglected his studies and was 
cashiered in 1831. Having no resources, he now devoted 
himself to literature as a profession. In 1833, the publisher 
of a Baltimore magazine offered two prizes, one for the best 

386 





H. M. MacCkackkn, D.D. 
Chancellor of New York University 



THE ORIGINATOR OF THE HALL OF FAME 



(387) 



y\ 




prose story, the other for the best poem. Poe competed, 
and won both prizes. A varied journaHstic career followed. 
In 1839, he became the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine, 
at Philadelphia, and published a collection of his best stories, 
with the title Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque. 
His famous poem " The Raven " appeared in 1845. Poe had 
married his own cousin, to whom he was passionately 
attached, but she was of delicate health, and a lingering 
illness of eight years caused constant anxiety to the half- 
starved poet. 

Poe died in 1849, having outlived his wife only two 
years. 



Noah Webster 

Noah Webster, the famous philologist, was born in 
Hartford, Connecticut, 1758. He entered Yale, but his 
studies were interrupted by the outbreak of the War of 
Independence, and for a time he served in his father's 
company of militia. After graduating, he became a teacher, 
but devoting his leisure hours to the study of law, he was 
admitted to the Bar in 1781. At this time he compiled sev- 
eral text-books, including a spelling book, which met with 
so great success that, though he received a royalty of less 
than one cent on a copy, the proceeds were sufficient to 
support himself and his family during the twenty years 
spent in the preparation of his dictionary. His speller is 
still in use, and over 62,000,000 copies have been published. 
Webster published a number of political pamphlets, and in 
1786 he delivered a course of lectures, which were published 
under the title Dissertations on the English Language. In 
1788, he established in New York the American Magazine, 

389 





»^r 



but it lived only twelve months, and the next year he settled 
in Hartford as a lawyer. However, four years later, he 
moved to New York and established a daily paper, the 
Minerva, a title that was afterwards changed to Commercial 
Advertiser. In 1794, he published a pamphlet on The 
Revohition in France, and he was the author of a history of 
pestilences and a number of other works. In 1807, he began 
work on his American Dictionary of the English Language. 
Many years were devoted to this labor, and in 1824 he went 
to Europe to consult literary authorities and books not to be 
found in this country. In the library of the University at 
Cambridge, England, the dictionary was at last finished, and 
Webster returned to America with the manuscript in 1825. 
Three years later was published the first edition of the dic- 
tionary, which contained 12,000 words and 40,000 definitions 
not to be found in any similar work. 

Webster's character was that of a man both genial and 
frank. He was deeply religious — a systematic student of 
the Bible, and during the last thirty-five years of his life a 
member of an Orthodox Congregational church. He died 
in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1843. 



Adoniram Judson 

Adoniram Judson, the famous missionary, was born in 
Maiden, Massachusetts, in 1788. He graduated in 1807, 
and after a year spent in teaching he decided to adopt 
dramatic authorship as his profession, and with this end in 
view he attached himself to a theatrical company. At this 
time, a sceptic in theological matters, his views underwent 
a sudden and complete change. In 1808, he entered Andover 
Theological Seminary, and two years later formed the 

390 






FAMOUS MEN 



resolution to go to Burmah as a missionary. Before setting 
out he married Ann Haseltine, of Bradford, Mass., who 
accompanied him on his voyage to India. It was while at 
sea that their views in regard to Christian baptism under- 
went a change. Believing that the baptism of the New Tes- 
tament was immersion, Mr. and Mrs. Judson had no sooner 
reached Calcutta than they were duly baptized by immersion. 
After some delays, the missionary and his associates 
proceeded to Rangoon, and Dr. Judson at once commenced 
the labor of mastering the Burmese language. In that he 
accomplished the difficult and unattractive task is evidence 
of his ability, his strength of will, and his consecration to his 
chosen work. To more surely accomplish his end he prac- 
tically abandoned his native language, talking, reading, and 
thinking in Burmese. In this way he was soon able to 
preach in the native tongue. Judson translated the Gospel 
of Matthew and the Epistle of the Ephesians into Burmese, 
and in 1833 completed the translation of the entire Bible. 
Meanwhile, the missionaries underwent the extremest suf- 
ferings. During the war between the Burmese and the 
English, they were suspected of being in correspondence 
with the latter, and were compelled to bear every kind of 
cruelty and indignity that the government could inflict upon 
them. From one foul prison they were driven to another 
almost naked, under the scorching sun, nor would they have 
escaped the fate of being burned alive had they not been 
liberated and assisted through the agency of Sir Archibald 
Campbell. The succeeding years were occupied with a 
series of missionary tours and of preaching in the Karen 
jungles. The next quarter of a century witnessed the con- 
version of 20,000 Karens to the Christian faith. 

391 



"<?•»" 




In addition to his translations of the Bible, Judson's 
chief literary works consisted of a Burman grammar, a Pali 
dictionary, and a Burman dictionary. 

Brown University, from which he had graduated in 
1807, conferred upon him, in 1823, the degree of D.D. In 
1843, Mrs. Judson's health necessitated a return to America, 
and she, dying on the voyage, was buried on the Island of 
St. Helena. Seven years later, Judson, having returned to 
the field of his labors, also died at sea, on the way to the 
Isle of France. 



^^Ai^ 



Hiram Powers 

Hiram Powers, the sculptor, was the son of a farmer. 
He was born at Woodstock, Vermont, in 1805. The family, 
however, moved to a farm in Ohio, six miles from Cincinnati, 
where, for about a year, Powers attended school. He began 
life by superintending the reading room of an hotel, but 
being, in his own words " forced at last to leave that place 
as his clothes and shoes were fast leaving him," he became 
a clerk in a general store, and afterwards procured employ- 
ment in a clock and organ factory, and displayed such appli- 
cation and ingenuity that he soon became the first mechanic 
in the factory. 

Having access to the studio of Mr. Eckstein, he studied 
the art of sculpture, and displayed such proficiency in mod- 
eling that he obtained a position as general assistant and 
artist of the Western Museum. He illustrated the more 
striking scenes in the poem of Dante by a representation of 
the infernal regions, that met with great success. In 1834 he 
went to Washington, and secured sittings from the President 
and a number of leading statesmen. A few years later he 

392 



m 




FAMOUS MEN 




went to Florence, and here he made his home until his 
death. 

His statue of Eve, executed in 1836, excited the warm- 
est admiration of Thorwaldsen, and the following year he 
produced his famous "Greek Slave," which at once gave him 
a place among the greatest sculptors of his time. 

Hiram Powers died in 1873. 

Daniel Boone 

Daniel Boone, the pioneer, was born in Bucks County, 
Pennsylvania, in 1735. He was thirty-four years of age 
when he started out to explore the wild region which is now' 
Kentucky. He was twice captured by Indians, but succeeded 
in escaping, and returned home. In 1773, he again started 
for Kentucky taking with him six families including his 
own and, erecting a fort at Boonesboro, he settled there 
with his family. On an expedition to the celebrated Blue 
Licks, to procure a supply of salt for the garrison, he was 
captured by the Indians. His companions were taken to 
Detroit and handed over to the British Commander, but 
Boone himself was retained and adopted into the family of 
Blackfish, a Shawanese chief. Discovering that the Indians 
had on the foot plans for an attack on Boonesboro, he 
resolved to warn his comrades and, though pursued by the 
Indians, finally reached the fort, after a journey of one 
hundred and sixty miles, in four days, during which time he 
had only one meal. Putting himself at the head of the little 
garrison of fifty, he succeeded in repulsing an attack of 
five hundred Indians, after a siege of incredible hardships. 
For his bravery Boone was rewarded with a major's com- 
mission from Virginia. In 1782, he took part in an engage- 

393 




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THE HALL OF FAME 








ment against four hundred Indians at Blue Licks, where one 
of his sons was killed. In 1795, he settled in Missouri, then 
a Spanish possession, receiving a grant of 8,000 acres. This 
he lost after the United States obtained possession of the 
territory, but finally Congress confirmed his title to a tract 
of 850 acres in recognition of his public service. Daniel 
Boone died in Charrette, Missouri, in 1820. 

William Hickling Prescott 

The historian, William Hickling Prescott, was born in 
Salem, Massachusetts, in 1796. As a boy, he had a passion 
for mimic warfare and for the narration of original stories. 
He had, too, a healthy aversion to persistent work. 

In 181 1, he entered Harvard, but almost at the outset 
his career was interrupted by an accident destined to affect 
his whole career. A hard piece of bread, flung at random in 
the Common Hall, struck his left eye with such force that 
the sight was irremediably damaged. He continued his 
college course, however, and after graduating, entered his 
father's law office, but the inflamed condition of his eye 
put a stop to his studies. For writing he had not dis- 
played any aptitude, but he now determined to devote his 
life to literature and began to study a grammar, Johnson's 
Dictionary and Blair's Rhetoric, reading at the same time a 
series of standard authors, after which many years were 
devoted to the study of general literature, including French, 
Italian and Spanish. 

That Prescott should have been drawn towards the pro- 
duction of historical works is the more remarkable, since he 
could only use the one eye that remained to him at inter- 
mittent periods, and traveling so affected his sight that he 

394 



uU/ 





Ma 



FAMOUS MEN 



^■■V;a^'Hiiii>f^' 




could anticipate personal research neither among unpub- 
lished documents nor amidst historic scenes. Possessing, 
however, ample means, and happy in the possession of 
friends able and willing to supply, as far as might be, the 
necessary material, he started upon his aims. For his reading 
he depended largely on his secretaries; for his writing he 
used a writing case specially made for the blind. 

His chief works were the History of Ferdinand and 
Isabella; the History of the Conquest of Mexico, to which 
he devoted six years ; the Conquest of Peru, which occupied 
four years, and the History of Phillip //., which was still 
unfinished at his death, in 1859. Prescott was chosen corre- 
sponding member of the French Institute, and on his visit to 
Europe in 1850, he received a most cordial and gratifying 
reception. 

John Singleton Copley 

John Singleton Copley, historical painter, was born at 
Boston, Massachusetts, in 1737. It was here he commenced 
his career as a portrait painter, and, although self-educated, 
he made rapid advancement with his work. He gained 
local celebrity by executing portraits of many members 
of the leading families. The beginning of his reputation 
in England was due to a little picture of a boy and a 
squirrel, exhibited at the Society of Arts, in 1760. After 
a year spent in Rome he returned to England, and 
shortly afterwards was admitted Associate of the Royal 
Academy. In 1783, he was made Academician, on the exhi- 
bition of his most famous picture " The Death of Chatham." 
Copley, who was the father of Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst, 
died in 1815. 

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THE HALL OF FAME 



Samuel Adams 

Samuel Adams, the eminent statesman, was born in 
Boston, in 1722. He was a second cousin to John Adams. 
He studied at Harvard, intending to become a Congrega- 
tional clergyman, but owing to his father's misfortunes in 
business he had to leave before the completion of his course. 
He then became a tax collector in the city of Boston. All his 
interests were directed in political channels, and in all the 
proceedings which terminated in the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence Adams was a conspicuous actor. In 1765, he was 
chosen a member of the General Court of Massachusetts, 
and at once became conspicuous in debate and was constant 
in his opposition to the English Parliament. He was a 
prominent member of the Continental Congress at Philadel- 
phia, and among those who signed the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence in 1776. He took part in drawing up the Consti- 
tution of Massachusetts and became president of its Senate. 
From 1794 to 1797 he was Governor of the State. 

It was in his oration on American independence, deliv- 
ered in 1776, that he characterized the English as " a nation 
of shopkeepers," thus, no doubt, providing Napoleon with 
the phrase he made familiar. 

Adams died in 1803. 

Horace Bushnell 

Litchfield, Connecticut, was the birthplace of Horace 
Bushnell (1802-1876), the eminent theologian. After study- 
ing at Yale College, where he graduated in 1827, he was for 
nearly a year editor of the Journal of Commerce, and after 
some experience as a teacher in a school at Norwich, Connec- 
ticut, he became a tutor in Yale College. At this time he 

396 



was engaged in the study of law, but in 1831 he decided to 
devote himself to theology, and being chosen pastor of the 
North Congregational Church in Hartford, Connecticut, in 
1833, he remained there for twenty-four years. 

Afterwards he had no settled charge, but his time was 
?j|^\\ constantly employed as a preacher and as a writer. 

Horace Bushnell was identified with the establishment of 
the University of California and was asked to become its pres- 
ident. He was the author of a number of important works. 

Henry Hobson Richardson 

The great architect, Henry Hobson Richardson, was 
born in Louisiana, in 1838. After graduating at Harvard, 
he went to Paris, where he remained until 1865. Having 
sustained the loss of his property during the Civil War, he 
was compelled to work for a living in an architect's office 
while carrying on his studies. On returning to America his 
first work was done in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he 
built the railroad offices, the Agawam Bank, and the Church 
of the Unity. The erection of the Brattle Street Church in 
Boston, is considered to mark the beginning of his best work. 
Trinity Church, in the same city, he built in the style of the 
Auvergne cathedral. For many years he was employed in 
the New York State Capitol at Albany. Richardson was in 
the best sense of the word a powerful man — he was powerful 
socially, intellectually, and in his profession making a lasting 
impress on the young men who became, as it were, the 
followers of his school. He created a peculiar style of 
architecture. In its strength, its simplicity, and its refine- 
ment it exercised a powerful influence for good in the taste 
of the country. He died in iJ 

397 







THE HALL OF FAME 



CHAPTER XXXIX 
SOME FAMOUS WOMEN 

IN 1902, a ballot was held among the readers of The 
Christian Herald, to nominate the twenty American 
women whose names, at future elections, might most 
worthily be chosen for the Hall of Fame. 

The following is the list of those who were selected: 
Frances E. Willard, Martha Washington, Harriet B. 
Stowe, Lucretia Mott, Phoebe Cary, Margaret Fuller, 
Louisa May Alcott, Mary Lyon, Maria Mitchell, Alice Cary, 
Helen Hunt Jackson, Emma C. Willard, Abigail Adams, 
Dolly Madison, Dorothea Dix, Mary Washington, Poca- 
hontas, Betsy Ross, Harriet G. Hosmer, Lydia H. Sigourney. 

Frances E. Willard 

Frances Elizabeth Willard, reformer, was bom in 
Churchville, N. Y., 1839. She was educated at the North- 
western Female College, Evanston, Illinois, and here, in 
1862, she was appointed professor of natural sciences, a post 
which she retained until, a few years later, she became 
principal of Genesee Wesley an Seminary. From 1781 to 
1874 she was professor of jesthetics in the Northwestern 
University and dean of the Woman's College. It was at 
this time that she developed her system of self-government, 
which has since been widely adopted by other educators. 

398 



FAMOUS WOMEN 



In 1874, Miss Willard became identified with the Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union, and after serving for five 
years as secretary of the National Association she then 
became its president. The same year she accepted the posi- 
tion of editor of the Chicago Evening Post. In 1886, Miss 
Willard assumed the leadership of the White Cross move- 
ment, and two years later was made president of the World's 
Christian Temperance Union. 

Mary and Martha Washington 

In Mary and in Martha Washington we have the con- 
ception of the ideal mother and ideal wife. Dr. Sparks, in 
his biography, speaks of " the debt owed by mankind to the 
mother of Washington." Her husband having died when 
her son was only eleven years old, his entire bringing-up 
devolved upon her, and few sons ever had a more loving 
and devoted mother. The home education was carried on 
with scrupulous fidelity and firmness, and the mother's pure 
and simple life afforded the precepts and example that gov- 
erned George Washington's career. Her favorite manual, 
Sir Matthezv Hale's Contemplations, she read aloud to her 
children, so that its religious and moral maxims were forever 
impressed on her son's mind and heart. The volume itself 
he never ceased to look upon as one of his most valuable 
possessions. :Mary Washington lived to see all her fondest 
ambitions for her son fulfilled, and it was on his way to his 
first inauguration as President of the United States that 

Washington came to bid his mother a last farewell. 

Martha Washington, wife of the first President, was born 
in Virginia, 1732. She was the daughter of Colonel John 
Dandrrdge. When only fifteen years old, she married Daniel 

399 





Parke Custis, the owner of the White House on Pamunkey 
River. In 1757 her husband died, and about a year after 
this event the young widow met Colonel Washington, to 
whom she was married in 1759. Mrs. Washington proved 
herself not only a thorough housekeeper but a popular 
hostess, and she ever showed the utmost sympathy in her 
husband's patriotic aims. In 1774 she wrote: "Yes, I 
foresee consequences — dark days, domestic happiness sus- 
pended; social enjoyments abandoned, and eternal separa- 
tion on earth possible. But my mind is made up, my 
heart is in the cause. George is right; he is always right. 
God has promised to protect the righteous and I will trust 
him," During the war, Mrs. Washington joined her hus- 
band whenever such a course was possible. Throughout the 
terrible winter at Valley Forge, she shared with the officers 
all their discomforts and privations, and " was busy from 
morning till night providing comforts for the sick soldiers." 
It was noticed that, while previous to the v.^ar she had 
paid that particular attention to her attire which her social 
position seemed to demand, she now wore only such simple 
garments as were spun and woven by her servants at Mount 
Vernon. It was her purpose to set an example of economy 
to the women of the Revolution. When, after the war, 
she assumed the duties of mistress of the executive man- 
sion in New York, she was fifty-seven years old ; her 
face still retained much of its beauty ; her manner and 
bearing was marked with a simple dignity well suited to 
her rank. She cared litttle, however, for official life, and 
did not conceal her pleasure, when, on her husband refusing 
a third term, in 1796, she was able to occupy herself 
with her domestic duties, and to devote herself to entertaining 

400 




^ 







the numerous guests who visited her husband. It is cited 
as an instance of her deep devotion to George Washington, 
that after his death she destroyed the entire correspond- 
ence that had passed betwen them, " Thus proving her love 
for him, for she would not permit that the confidence they 
had shared together should be made public." She survived 
him two and a half years. 

Abigail Adams and Dorothy Madison 

Among the wives of our Presidents, two other names 
stand out conspicuously — Abigail, wife of John Adams, and 
Dorothy, wife of James Madison. Dorothy Payne was 
brought up as a Quaker, and when not yet twenty years 
old married John Todd, a Pennsylvania lawyer. He died 
in 1793, and the following year she met Mr. Madison, to 
whom she was shortly married, to the great delight of both 
President Washington and his wife. Their married life, 
which lasted over a period of forty-two years, was one of 
unshadowed happiness. Very beautiful and very accom- 
plished, Mrs. Madison won for herself a distinguished place 

among American women. Another of the remarkable 

women of the period was Abigail Adams. Prevented by 
ill-health from attending school, she devoted herself assid- 
uously to her studies, becoming acquainted with the best 
English literature and master of a vigorous and elegant 
styfe. In 1764 she married John Adams, who at that 
time was a young lawyer practising his profession in 
Boston. In his interest, in the stormy disputes which 
foreshadowed the Revolution, she shared with all the inten- 
sity of her nature, and she bravely supported him in his 
efforts to urge on the Declaration of Independence. After- 

401 



M 



^■M^ 



<^ 









ward, throughout his diplomatic and poHtical career she 
continued her loving support, and both by her sunny dispo- 
sition and her unfailing sagacity, deserved that wide affection 
that was accorded to her. 

Emma Willard 

Emma Willard was born in Berlin, Connecticut, in 1787. 
Her education was received at the village academy and later 
at Hartford, Conn., and she was barely sixteen when she 
began to teach. After a somewhat varied experience, she 
opened a boarding school for girls in Middlebury, and it 
was then she introduced new studies and new methods of 
education, the value of which was quick to be recognized. 
Her plans were elaborated in a treatise on the Education of 
Women, which was given to the public in the form of an 
address to the legislature in 18 19, and the same year she 
opened a school in Waterford, N. Y., which was incorporated 
and in large measure supported by the State government. 
Three years later she moved to Troy, N.Y., which town 
had offered her an appropriate building for educational pur- 
poses. Here she remained until 1836, when she traveled in 
Europe, afterwards publishing her Journal. The proceeds 
derived from the sale of this she devoted to the support of 
a school in Greece, which had been founded mainly by her 
exertions, for the training of native female teachers. She 
was the author of a large number of school-books that have 
been translated into many foreign languages. Her poetry 
also won high recognition, the best known of her poems 
being " Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep." Emma Willard 
is considered the pioneer in the higher education of women 
in this country. 

402 



P^^l 





FAMOUS WOMEN 





Alice and Phoebe Gary 

The gifted sisters Ahce and Phoebe Gary, were both born 
near Cincinnati, Ohio — the elder in 1820, the younger in 
1824. Although inseparable companions from an early age, 
they dififered in temperament, in person and in mental consti- 
tution. Both, however, felt strongly the desire to study and 
to write, though their ambitions received no encouragement 
from their stepmother, who, though they aided ungrudgingly 
in the household labors, even refused the use of candles to 
enable them to follow their inclinations after the day's work 
was done. In 1852, the two sisters came to New York City, 
where their work soon won recognition. Alice Cary, who 
was an indefatigable writer, contributed to the periodical lit- 
erature of the day, and gained fame as well for her articles 
and her novels as for her verse, the excellence of which was 
such as to earn her a place very near the head of American 
female poets. Phcebe Cary began to write verses at the age 
of seventeen — a year earlier than her sister. In New York, 
however, being the more robust of the two, she undertook 
the larger share of the domestic duties of the little house- 
hold, and consequently had less time to devote to her literary 
labors. If anything, her verses were more popular than 
those of her sister; they were buoyant in tone, independent 
in manner, reflecting, perhaps, her more abundant health. 
However, her sister's death in 1871, so affected her that she 
followed Alice to the grave the same year. Just before 
her death, she wrote an exquisite and touching tribute to the 
memory of her sister, whom she had nursed with wonderful 
tenderness during her last illness. It is curious that it was 
one of her earliest poems, " Nearer Home," written in 1842, 
which won a world-wide reputation. 

403 












Harriet Beecher Stowe, Margaret Fuller, Louisa May Alcott, 
Helen Hunt Jackson, and Lydia A. Sigourney 

In the history of American literature these five names 
will ever be inscribed with honor. Harriet Beecher Stowe 
was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1812 — the third 
daughter and the sixth child of the Rev. Dr. Lyman 
Beecher. His impassioned appeals, in sermon and in 
prayer, on behalf of the slaves, could not fail to have an 
effect on the child. She grew up an avowed enemy of 
slavery. In 1836 she married Mr. Stowe, and their house 
frequently provided shelter for hunted negroes. It was while 
living at Brunswick, Me., occupied with the care of her 
family, that she wrote Uncle Toms Cabin, which was 
published in book form in 1852. In the five years following 
its issue, 500,000 copies of the work were sold in the United 
States alone. It has been translated into at least twenty 
languages. Mrs. Stowe was the author of a number of 
other works, of which, from a literary point of view, the 

—Sarah 



ablest is considered to be the Minister's Wooing. 
Margaret Fuller was born in Cambridgeport, Mass., in 1810. 
Early in life she won friends among the leading writers 
and philosophers of the day, her unusual mental qualities 
enabling her to meet them as equals. In 1844, she came to 
New York and joined the staff of the Tribune, displaying 
in her writing a wide philanthropic purpose and occupying 
a high position in literary and artistic circles. In 1847, while 
on a visit to Europe, she was married to Giovanni Angelo, 
Marquis Ossoli, and became an ardent supporter of the 
Italian struggle for independence. On her return to New 
York she renewed her literary work, winning fresh renown 

as an author and a reformer. Louisa May Alcott was born 

404 




FAMOUS WOMEN 

in Germantown, Philadelphia in 1832. She began her lit- 
erary career when quite young, but it was not until 1867 that 
she wrote Little Women, which at once made her famous. 
From that time she was a prolific writer, her books being 

read by an enormous circle of admirers. Helen Maria 

Fiske Jackson was born in Amherst, Mass., in 1831. She 
became known to the public early in life through her con- 
tributions to the periodical literature of the day, under the 
signature of "H H." After her marriage to William S. 
Jackson, she passed much of her time in Colorado Springs 
and devoted herself largely to an endeavor to better the 
conditions of the Indians. She was the author of a long 
list of books — among them Romona — an outcome of a visit 
to California, in 1883, when she was appointed special com- 
missioner to examine into the condition of the Mission 

Indians. Equally famous among American authors is the 

name of Lydia Huntley Sigourney, who was born in Nor- 
wich, Connecticut, in 1791. That she was an indefatigable 
writer is shown by a list drawn up by herself, which enu- 
merates forty-six distinct works, and some 2,000 articles in 
prose and verse. She is, however, remembered not only as a 
writer but as a philanthropist. She displayed the true 
Christian spirit in ever denying herself in order to help 
others — the poor, the sick, the deformed, the slave and the 
convicts were the objects of her unceasing care and charity. 

Lucretia Mott, Mary Lyon and Dorothea Dix 

Lucretia Mott, reformer, was born on the island of 
Nantucket, Massachusetts, in 1793. Like Mrs. Stowe, she 
early became interested in the cause of the slaves, and was a 
persistent and eloquent advocate of emancipation. The 

405 



Qh>-\ 




«^> 



THE HALL OF FAME 






other great interest of her hfe was the endeavor to improve 

the legal and political status of women. Mary Lyon was 

born in Buckland, Massachusetts, in 1797. Her life was 
devoted to the cause of education ; her active interest cen- 
tering in the founding of Mount Holyoke Seminary, at 
South Hadley, Mass., of which she served as principal until 
her death. It was a characteristic feature of her system that 
all the domestic labor in connection with the institution should 
be performed by teachers and pupils, in order to promote 

interest and efficiency in household work. Dorothea 

Lynde Dix was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, about 
1794. The pitiable condition of the prisoners in the State 
convict prisons early enlisted her sympathy ; she visited 
them, and labored unceasingly on their behalf. Not only pris- 
oners, but paupers and lunatics became, as it were, her special 
charge. At one period in her life she visited every State in 
the Union east of the Rocky Mountains, exerting all her 
powers to induce legislatures to take measures to better 
the condition of the poor and wretched. During the Civil 
War, Miss Dix was appointed superintendent of the hos- 
pital nurses. She was the author of several books, and in- 
numerable memorials to legislative bodies on philanthropic 
subjects. 

Other Great American Women 

Maria Mitchell was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, 
in 1818. The daughter of William Mitchell, the astronomer, 
she, in childhood, made such progress in mathematical and 
astronomical studies as to be able to help her father in his 
investigations. She rapidly extended the range of her 
knowledge, and on October i, 1847, ^^^ discovered a comet, 

406 



m 



iS©S 



iQ!I^' 



Ul 



FAMOUS WOMEN 



thereby winning for herself international recognition. In 
1858, she went to Europe, to visit the chief observatories, 
and on her return was presented with a telescope by the 
women of America. In 1865 Miss Mitchell became Pro- 
fessor of Astronomy at Vassar College. She was the first 
woman to be elected to the American Academy of Arts 
and Sciences, and was deeply interested in every move- 
ment that had for its object the advancement of women's 

work and rights. Harriet G. Hosmer, was born in 

Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1830. She began to model 
at an early age, supplementing her art studies by a course 
in anatomy. For some time she studied in Rome under 
John Gibson, the English sculptor, displaying original 
powers, which soon earned for her deservedly high recog- 
nition. Her work is well known both in this country 

and in Italy. Betsy Ross, patriot, was a resident of 

Philadelphia. It was in 1776, the year of her husband's 
death, that she received in her humble abode a visit from 
several members of the Secret Committee, who laid before 
her a rough sketch made by Washington, showing the 
design of a new flag for the patriot army. Setting to 
work at once, she conceived and carried out the first Amer- 
ican flag — the flag destined to become " Old Glory." The 
new emblem received the immediate approval of Washing- 
ton and the army ; it became a source of inspiration to the 
new nation. From this time Betsy Ross was regularly en- 
gaged in the work of flag-making. On her death she was 
buried in Mount Moriah Cemetery, Philadelphia. Poca- 
hontas appears on the page of history with the suddenness 
and the effect of the heroine in some romantic drama. 
Captain John Smith, while engaged on a trading expedition 

407 



THE HALL OF FAME 



i 



-,-^^ 



from Jamestown, Virginia, in December, 1607, was cap- 
tured by the Indians, who led him about the country for a 
wonder, and finally, early in January, brought him before 
the chief, Powhatan. Having feasted him after their bar- 
barous manner, a long consultation was held, at the con- 
clusion of which two great stones were placed before the 
chief. Then as many as could laid hands on Smith, dragged 
him to the stones and laid his head upon them. They were 
ready with their clubs to beat out his brains, when Poca- 
hontas, the king's dearest daughter, finding no entreaties 
prevail, threw her arms around him and laid her own head 
upon his to save him from death. When Smith at last 
returned to his people, Pocahontas frequently went to James- 
town. Then, after Smith's return to England and reported 
death, she fell in love with an English gentleman, John Rolfe. 
They were married in 1614. Subsequently, Pocahontas 
embraced Christianity, and in 161 6 she visited England, 
where she was well received both by the court and the 
people. 

It is certainly a question whether Pocahontas can prop- 
erly be included in a list of great American women ; but she 
not only received a number of supporters in the ballot held 
among the readers of The Christian Herald, but her name 
appeared in a large number of the other unofficial ballots 
held at the time when nominations for the Hall of Fame 
were first invited from the public. Of the other names 
which received support in The Christian Herald ballot, it will 
be noted that the list includes seven out of the nine women 
who were nominated for the first official ballot. Not one 
of them was elected. 

The total number of votes which these nine women 
408 




received out of a possible 97 is shown below, with the votes 
cast by the three women among the judges — Miss Hazard, 
of Wellesley College; Miss M. Carey Thomas, of Bryn 
Mawr, and Mrs. Alice F. Palmer, of Cambridge, Mass. 

Votes Votes by women 

Helen Hunt Jackson 3 i 

Mary Lyon 20 3 

Emma Willard 4 O 

Lucretia Mott 1 1 i 

Dorothea Dix 12 I 

J^Iaria Mitchell 7 ^ 

Martha Washington 14 o 

Charlotte S. Cushman received a total of 13 votes, none 
cast by the women electors, and Elizabeth A. Seton, who 
was also nominated, received no votes at all. 

Judging, then, by the result of this first ballot, it is only 
fair to assume that under the existing regulations, the name 
of no woman will at any time be inscribed in the one hun- 
dred and fifty panels provided in the Hall of Fame for 
great Americans. Yet it would be well if at least a single 
place were reserved among the Immortals for the name of 
one exalted representative of American womanhood. 

The Lady with the Lamp shall stand, 

In the great history of the land. 
The noble type of good, 
Heroic Womanhood \— Longfellow. 



^ 





409 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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